A Murderers Deception
by PicnicFanficnicAardvark
Summary: The murder of a Petty Office brings NCIS to Community General Hospital, and for one of the characters, the case becomes personal.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Diagnosis Murder, NCIS or any of the characters.**

* * *

><p><span>Prologue<span>

Dr Jesse Travis rushed with Dr Mark Sloan to an EMT team. Both men were dressed in scrubs.

"What have we got?" Mark asked as he looked down at a man in his late twenties, early thirties lying on a gurney. Jesse's jaw dropped when he got a look at the man.

"Single gunshot wound to the chest, we started him on an IV drip, wide open and shocked him three times on the way in" A male EMT told them.

Mark nodded, grabbing the gurney,"Trauma one, stat!" With that Jesse, the EMT and some nurses raced down the hallway with the gurney alongside Mark.

They barged through the doors and hoisted the man up onto the table. Jesse was about to check the patients vital signs when the cardiac monitor began to blare, telling them that the patient was going into cardiac fibrillation. He grabbed the defibrillator paddles.

"300 joules...clear!" Jesse shouted. Nothing happened. "Again!" Jesse shouted, "Clear" Still nothing.

"Again!" Jesse shouted. When it didn't work for a third time Jesse dropped the paddles and started CPR.

"Jesse..." Mark looked at the flatline on the monitor then put his hand on the young doctors shoulder, "Jesse, he's gone"

"Just a few more minutes Doc, I can revive him" Jesse carried on administering CPR.

Mark pulled him away gently, "There's nothing more we can do"

Jesse stopped reluctantly and nodded. The beep of the monitor echoed through the room.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Less than an hour ago Community General Hospital had been surrounded by LAPD Officers following the death of the latest murder victim, many of the medical staff involved being asked to stay near the Nurses Station whilst they asked questions and took statements. Most of the medical staff had been working long shifts and secretly hoped that the Police would just hurry up and get out of there.

Now everything had calmed down, all who had been involved with trying to save the victim had either gone home or were now carrying on with their duties. The majority of the Police Officers had gone home, bar one or two who were just finishing off procedures. Mark's son, Lt. Steve Sloan, was the Detective leading the investigation and he too had stayed at the hospital.

Once Steve had finished talking to the remaining Officers, he went over to his father and Jesse who were both leaning against the Nurses Station, back in their shirt and ties. Both of them looked worn-out from the recent events. As well as appearing weary, Jesse also looked very glum.

"Hey" Steve smiled, he put his hand on Jesse's shoulder, "You OK Jess?"

Jesse just about managed a half smile, "Today just hasn't been my day"

"Yeah, well it hasn't been Petty Officer Victor Samuals either"

All three men looked towards a silver haired man, dressed quite similar to Steve, with a Polo Shirt and suit. The only difference being Steve's suit was a darker shade of brown, and his polo shirt was green, whereas the older mans was a dark blue. The mans face had 'authority' written all over it. Walking besides him was a younger man, wearing an expensive silver Italian suit and a pair of Ray-Bans. His face mimicked the older mans, but it just didn't have the right edge to it.

"I'm Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS, and this is Special Agent Gibbs" Both men flipped out their ID's, "We've come for Petty Officer Samuals body"

"NCI who?" Jesse mouthed to Mark.

"Feds" Mark whispered to Jesse, he rubbed his finger across his moustache, trying to be discrete.

"So that's it, you're just taking over the investigation?" Steve rolled his eyes, "And let me guess, you want no more involvement from the Police"

A thought suddenly hit Mark, before Gibbs or Tony had a chance to respond to Steve. "Wait, are you from the NCIS based in Washington DC?" Gibbs gave a single nod, "How did you get here so quick? The mans only been dead an hour or two"

"I don't know about anyone else, but from now on I wanna take whatever plane you two were on"

A small smile appeared on Gibbs face at Steve's comment, whilst Tony just grinned.

Jesse wasn't feeling very happy still being stood there, he had other things he wanted to do. The young doctor tugged on Mark's sleeve, "Doc, can I..." He pointed towards the exit. Mark nodded in response and Jesse began to sneak away.

"We were already in LA on some business," Tony explained, he noticed Jesse, "Hey Doc, stick around, we might need to ask you a few questions"

Jesse stopped in his stride and turned around slowly.

"It's OK, I was the Doctor in charge, Dr Travis was just assisting"

Tony looked at Gibbs and then nodded for Jesse to leave. Jesse gave Mark an appreciative smile and walked away.

"So, Detective..." Gibbs waited for a name.

He showed his badge. "Lt. Steve Sloan, Homicide, and this is my father"

"Dr Mark Sloan" Mark smiled politely.

"Where's the body?" Gibbs asked.

* * *

><p>Officer Ziva David and Special Agent Timothy McGee, dressed in their black NCIS staff jackets, baseball caps and gloves, were busily investigating the crime scene, whilst Tony and Gibbs were at the hospital. When they had arrived, the Mobile Home that the Petty Officer had been shot in was surrounded by Police. After asking the Officers a few initial questions, and taking any evidence they had found from them, Ziva and McGee had sent them away.<p>

The trailer had no visible signs of forced entry, which led the two of them to believe Samuals probably knew the shooter. Inside the trailer there was a suitcase which hadn't been completely unpacked; this suggested that Samuals hadn't been living in the trailer long, and wasn't going to be living in it long-term either, something that wasn't surprising considering he had a house only a few miles away from where the trailer was. The reason why he was out here was unclear, but Marital problems was an obvious guess. Although an 'obvious guess' wouldn't be good enough for Gibbs.

The victim had been found with his upper body sprawled out on the corner couch and his lower body touching the floor. The position of the body, and the fact that there were no drag marks on the carper meant that Petty Officer Samuals must have been standing before he was shot, and had fell backwards onto the couch.

The only thing that was broken was a lamp which had been pulled from the socket, most probably from when the murderer was making his or her getaway.

"We come to LA to finish off one case, and then get another one the day we're supposed to be flying back to DC" McGee sighed, as he took photo's of the crime scene, "I don't know if I can handle sharing a room with Tony for another night"

Ziva laughed, then noticed something in the wall, she took a closer look, "McGee!"

McGee stood up and walked over to Ziva who was pointing at the wall behind the couch, "Do you think that's the bullet that killed him?" McGee took a photo of their new piece of evidence and then passed Ziva some tweezers.

"Yes McGee" She replied, using the tweezers to take the 9mm bullet out of the wall. McGee grabbed one of the empty evidence bags and held it open whilst Ziva dropped the bullet into it.

They decided to do a little experiment to determine the height of the shooter. Using a piece of string, they stuck one end next to the bullet hole: McGee, being approximately the same height as the victim stood up in front of the couch, he held some of the string onto his arm, aligning it up with his chest, and Ziva pulled the remaining string to where the shooter most likely stood.

"From the angle and the height of the bullet I'd say the shooter was at least six inches shorter than Petty Officer Samuals" McGee said, realising the killer was most probably around Ziva's height, he added, "It seems Tony might actually be right about it being the wife for once"

"Or, it could be a short man McGee, there is no saying the killer is definitely a woman" She hoped Tony was wrong, listening to him boasting was like torture.

* * *

><p>"The body's on the way to Ducky as we speak" Gibbs turned into a driveway with his cellphone stuck to his ear, stopped the car, and got out; Tony got out of the passengers side and they both slammed the doors shut, "Send them over to Abs". He closed his phone and walked up to a white house with an American flag stuck out next to the door.<p>

"That was McGee, they've found the bullet and they're sending the evidence over to Abby" He knocked on the door.

A young slender woman, about 5 foot 7 with long blonde hair, wearing a turquoise tank top, light blue cropped jeans and brown braided sandals opened the door, and wiped her eyes with a tissue, "Can I help you?"

Gibbs and Tony took out their ID's, "Mrs Samuals?" Gibbs asked. She nodded and let the NCIS agents into her house and took them to her light orange couch, which Gibbs sat on.

"Hey Mrs Samuals, do you mind if I take a look around, I might find some clues to your husbands murder" Tony was already looking at some photographs of Petty Officer Samuals with his wife which were on top of the fireplace.

"Of course" She sat down on the glass coffee table in front of Gibbs and nodded, "Anything to help find Vic's killer, and please, call me Shelly"

Tony put on some gloves and wasted no time in searching her home- as far as he was concerned Shelly was the main suspect. Whilst he searched Gibbs talked to the young woman about her husband.

"Petty Officer Samuals was found in a trailer, it looked like he had probably been living there for about a week." Gibbs repeated what McGee had told him, "Were you and your husband having problems?"

She started to fidget with the tissue in her hand, "About a week ago my husband found out I was having an affair with another man, we argued and then he moved out," Gibbs raised his eyebrows, "Look, I know what you're gonna say, and I'm not proud of what I did. I loved my husband, Agent Gibbs, but sometimes you just meet someone you really like and then one thing leads to another..."

"And who was this 'Someone', Mrs Samuals?" Gibbs was holding his notepad and pen, "Was he aware you were already married?"

She shook her head, "His name is Jesse, Jesse Travis, he's a Doctor at Community General Hospital."

Tony stopped searching the side cabinet and turned to Gibbs, both men looked at each other then carried on with what they were doing.

Gibbs asked her a few questions about her affair. According to Shelly, she and Jesse had been dating for about a month, they'd met at the hospital when she'd took her brother to get an X-RAY on his shoulder. She thought Jesse had a cute smile, and he made her laugh, so when he asked her if she wanted to grab a coffee she just said 'Yes'; after that they just grew closer and closer. That was until he discovered she was married.

Gibbs wrote the information down, "So when did Dr Travis find out?"

"A few hours after Vic had packed his bags and gone up to the trailer Jesse came knocking at my door," She answered, "He told me that 'Some guy' had confronted him at the Hospital, saying he was my husband. I think Jesse was hoping my husband was lying; when I told him the truth he called the whole thing off, said he couldn't date someone who was married."

Gibbs was about to ask another questions when Tony shouted to them from the Kitchen. They went to the kitchen, and saw Tony, who was holding a silver pistol in his hand, "Is this yours Mrs Samuals?"

Her jaw dropped, "I don't understand, I reported that gun stolen a week ago."

"Do you have a permit?" Gibbs enquired.

"Yeah..." She stared at the weapon, "My husband bought it for me, he said 'You can never be too careful.'"

"Boss, this guns been fired recently."

They put the gun in an evidence bag to be sent off to Abby, along with Shelly's fingerprints. They knew that unless the weapon had been wiped clean it should have Shelly's fingerprints on it, so if it was the gun used to murder Petty Officer Samuals, and there were more than one set of prints, then they would know which ones were hers.

Whilst Gibbs was taking her fingerprints Tony went into another room and called the police to see if Shelly actually did report the gun stolen, according to their records she had.

Tony asked Shelly where she was when her husband was shot. She told him that she'd been out to brunch with friends; Gibbs asked if anyone else had been in the house since her husband had been murdered- he found out that only Jesse and a handful of her family members had visited to console her. It was clear that if Shelly really wasn't the murderer then any one of them could have planted the weapon, and according to Mrs Samuals they all knew where Petty Officer Samuals was staying.

The NCIS agents left her house and got back into their car, "So what do you think Boss?"

"I think you should go back to the hospital, take McGee with you...I wanna see what Dr Travis has to say about their affair," He drove out of the driveway, "That's if he can stay around long enough this time."

* * *

><p>Jesse wasn't at the Hospital when Tony and McGee went to ask him a few questions, so they asked some of the medical staff about him instead, knowing that Gibbs wouldn't be very pleased if they came back with nothing. After they were done at the Hospital they decided to pay Jesse a visit at his apartment, but he wasn't there either, so the two of them headed back to the hotel they'd been staying at.<p>

Tony looked in the reflection of the glass, and brushed his fingers against his hair to fix it as he waited for the lights to change.

"It's getting late." McGee looked out at the night sky.

"What's wrong McGeek, past your bedtime?" The lights changed and Tony continued driving to the hotel.

"No, I'm just bracing myself for another night of movie talk and Sean Connery impressions."

"Oh, I'm sorry, do I bore you...Elf Lord?" He parked the car outside the hotel and got out, slamming the door shut and walking up to the door.

McGee got out of the passengers side and slammed his door, "Hey I'll have you know online gaming is a very popular activity."

The banter continued as they went through the hotel towards Gibbs room so they could report back to him. When they entered the room Gibbs was on his cellphone, and Ziva was standing near the window.

"...Let me know Duck." Gibbs closed his cellphone, "Petty Officer Samuals body's just arrived at NCIS, so what did you two find out?"

"Travis wasn't at the Hospital when the shooting took place!" Tony said quickly, looking pleased with himself when he had finished, as though he was trying to compete with McGee.

"Did he say why Tony?" Ziva asked, moving towards the three of them.

"We didn't actually talk to Dr Travis, he wasn't at the Hospital or his apartment, we did however ask around." McGee explained.

The two of them filled Gibbs and Ziva in on what they had found out. Tony had found out that about three quarters of an hour or so before the shooting Jesse had asked one of the Doctors to cover his shift why he made a house call. He returned about twenty minutes before Petty Officer Samuals arrived at the hospital, just about having enough time to change and scrub up.

And McGee had found out that quite a few of the Doctors had witnessed Samuals confronting Jesse about having an affair with his wife. They said it was obvious that Jesse didn't know she was married and at first Jesse looked pretty crushed, but then that turned to denial and the Doctor had accused Samuals of pulling some sort of prank and left the Hospital. He was gone about a half hour, looking even more upset when he got back.

"According to the witnesses when Jesse was walking away Samuals threatened him saying, 'You'd better hope I never see you again.'." McGee shut his notepad.

Gibbs' cell rang again, it was Abby telling him the evidence had arrived. He promised to put two Caf-Pows on his 'tab' if she worked through the night. When he hung up the four of them talked some more about the case before calling it a night.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Abby and Ducky called Gibbs early the next morning to tell him what they had found out. Abby told him that the 9mm bullet Ziva had pulled out of the wall at the crime scene matched the bullets in Shelly's gun, and Ducky confirmed it was the bullet that had killed Petty Officer Samuals. Abby went on to tell Gibbs that she had found three sets of fingerprints on the murder weapon, one set belonged to Shelly, another to the victim and the third set she was unable to account for.

A little later that morning, after Gibbs had filled his team in on what Abby and Ducky had found, he told Tony and McGee to go back to the hospital to talk to Jesse, telling them that they weren't to report back until they had found the Doctor. While Tony and McGee drove to Community General Hospital, Gibbs and Ziva paid a visit to each of the family members Shelly said had visited her straight after the murder, to eliminate all the possible suspects.

* * *

><p>Tony and McGee got to the hospital just in time to see Jesse talking to Mark and Dr Amanda Livingston. The young Doctor was giving her an exaggerated account of what had happened the day before, much to Marks amusement. According to Jesse, the Hospital had been swarming with NCIS agents, who all had muscles the size of body builders.<p>

"And don't forget our dashingly good looks," Tony chipped in as the two of them approached, he looked at McGee, "Well, most of us."

Amanda rolled her eyes when Tony smiled at her.

Jesse looked suitably embarrassed, "Sorry I just, sometimes I get a little carried away and, and I..."

"Miss out important details, like the fact you knew the murdered Petty Officer?" Tony asked, he took a sip from his silicone coffee cup, then turned to McGee, "This is Special Agent McGee, let's stand over near that elevator where it's a little quieter and we'll ask you a few questions Dr Travis." McGee held up his ID and the three of them walked over to the elevator across from the Nurses Station.

"I only spoke to Petty Officer Samuals once, I didn't know it was relevant." Jesse looked slightly worried, "Am I in trouble?"

"Not unless you've done something wrong. Hey, will you hold this?" Tony passed Jesse his silicone coffee cup and produced a notepad and pen from his pocket. He took the cup back off him, holding it at the bottom, "Thanks, so tell me Doc, what happened when you and Samuals spoke?"

Mark and Amanda watched as Tony and McGee talked to Jesse, straining to try to hear what they were saying through the Hospital noise, but attempting to look discrete as they did so.

"I was standing right there," He pointed to the Nurses Station, Mark and Amanda quickly turned away, making themselves look busy, "Filling out some paperwork when this guy came straight up to one of the Nurses demanding to talk to me. I walked around to him, told him who I was and then he started shouting and accusing me of having an affair with his wife. I didn't know what he was talking about, then when he told me Shelly, the girl I'd been dating for a month was married to him, and had been for almost four years I just figured he was pulling some sort of prank."

"So you had no idea Shelly Samuals was married." McGee asked.

Jesse shook his head, "No Sir, I went over to her house to ask about what Petty Officer Samuals had said, turned out he was telling the truth so I broke it off with her right there and then, I couldn't date someone who was married."

"You must have been pretty upset," Tony looked through his notepad, "When we talked to Mrs Samuals yesterday she told us you'd been to visit her, straight after her husbands murder to make sure she was alright, that was very thoughtful of you, you know, all things considered."

"I was upset, but I also believed she did actually have feelings for me," The conversation was beginning to make Jesse look uncomfortable, "I just wanted to make sure she knew she could talk to me if she needed anything."

"Did you love her?" Tony asked, Jesse nodded, "Do you still love her?"

Jesse looked down at his hands and started twiddling his thumbs, "Yeah." He mumbled.

Mark couldn't hear what they had been saying but he didn't like how uncomfortable Jesse was looking so he made his way over to the three of them with Amanda following closely behind. He put his hand on Jesse's shoulder.

Mark frowned, "I think you've asked Dr Travis enough questions, this is a busy Hospital and he has a lot of patients to see to."

"Can't one of the other Doctors cover for Dr Travis?" Tony looked at Mark, then turned his attention back on Jesse, "You know, like they did yesterday, when you left for about three quarters of an hour, around the time Samuals was shot actually. Why did you leave the Hospital anyway?"

"I, I was making an emergency house call. A lady phoned me up, I went to her house, but when I got there she said nobody had called so I left." Jesse looked at the two Agents nervously, "Am I a suspect?"

"Right now Dr Travis everyone is a suspect," McGee answered, "It's still early into our investigation."

Tony asked Jesse the address of the woman he said had phoned him and wrote it down in his notepad.

"Well, I think that's all, thanks for your co-operation Doc, we'll know where to find you if anything else come up." Tony started to walk away, McGee walking beside him.

"I'm not sure if I like NCIS very much," Mark said as he watched them talking to each other at the far side of the Nurses Station, he turned to Amanda, "Why don't you and Jesse go to the Doctors Lounge?"

"Good idea." She smiled, they both headed into the Doctors Lounge, "Come on, I'll make you some coffee."

Mark quickly walked to Tony and McGee, "You know, if you wanted Jesse's fingerprints all you had to do was ask, he would have given them to you." He told them, before walking away, with a hint of a smile on his face at their shocked reactions.

The two agents looked at each other.

"How did he know?" Tony looked at the silicone coffee cup, "No one ever knows when Gibbs does it."

"Yeah, well you're not Gibbs Tony." McGee opened up an evidence bag for him.

"'You're not Gibbs Tony.'" The Senior Field Agent mimicked as he dropped the cup into the evidence bag. The two of them left the Hospital.

* * *

><p>Six evidence bags were lined up side by side on Gibbs' bed, including the one Tony and McGee had got from the Hospital. Three of them held pens, two had silicone coffee cups and one had a plastic fork in it.<p>

"So none of them caught on to the fact that you were getting their fingerprints?" Tony asked again, Gibbs gave him a look, "Not even the one with the fork?"

"For the last time Tony, nobody knew!" Ziva hissed.

Tony picked up the evidence bag with the fork in it, "How did you even get this anyway?"

Gibbs snatched the bag off him, "DiNozzo I swear if you mention that fork again I'll ram the damn thing down your throat!"

"Sorry Boss."

McGee started to put the evidence bags into a box.

Out of the eight possible suspects Gibbs and Ziva had spoken to, the five they had gotten fingerprints from were the ones who were both around the height of the shooter and the ones who didn't have a good enough alibi. The possible suspects Gibbs had 'obtained' fingerprints from were her Aunt, Julie Sanders, her Uncle, Jerry Sanders, her two cousins, Emily Daniels and Dylan Sanders and her brother, Carl Sanders.

All five of them claimed to have quite liked Samuals, and none of them could think of anyone who would have wanted him dead. Although both of Shelly's cousins said they knew about her affair with Jesse and apparently preferred the young Doctor to Samuals.

Gibbs had simply passed her Aunt and Uncle a pen each, telling them to write down anyone who had anything against the Petty Officer. When they visited Emily, Gibbs had dropped a pen and she passed it to him. Dylan had been on his lunch break eating pasta when they talked to him, he'd left his pasta and plastic fork on the table at the back of the shop he worked in when his boss had shouted for him. Gibbs grabbed the fork, before leaving with Ziva. Gibbs had grabbed himself and Carl a coffee and headed to the mans house; Carl was pleasantly surprised at Gibbs' kind offer. When it was time to leave Gibbs had sneaked Carl's half empty cup out.

Gibbs had managed to get five sets of fingerprints without them knowing. Now they needed to send the five sets of fingerprints from Shelly's family members and Jesse's fingerprints to Abby so she could see whose fingerprints, if any, matched the ones on the murder weapon.

"DiNozzo, McGee, go to Veronica Martins house and see if Travis really did make that house call." He turned to Ziva, "Ziva, send the fingerprints off to Abby."

* * *

><p>Tony and McGee walked back to their car from Veronica Martins house. Jesse had been there the day before like he'd said, but according to Veronica they were talking for less then five minutes, which still left Jesse with five to ten minutes unaccounted for, missing out the drive back to the Hospital.<p>

They got into their car and Tony started to drive away.

"Ah Tony, the hotels in the opposite direction."

"No kiddin' McNavigator," Tony replied as he drove, "I'm just checking something out."

Tony ignored McGee's questions then finally stopped the car next to the crime scene, "Aha!"

"You think we might have missed something in Samuals trailer?"

Tony shook his head as he got out of the car, "OK, so Travis left Martins house at eleven am, that must have taken us what, five minutes to here get from her house, Samuals shooting was reported at approximately eleven-o-nine, and the Hospital can't be anymore than ten minutes from here so..."

"That would have given Dr Travis plenty of time to leave Miss Martins house, get to the trailer to shoot Samuals and return to the Hospital." McGee completed Tony's sentence as he too got out of the car.

They both started to get into the car, "And by the time the Paramedics arrived at the trailer, got Samuals into the ambulance and drove back to the Hospital Travis would have had about twenty minutes or so to scrub up ready for the EMT's to arrive with Samuals at..."

McGee opened up his notepad, "Eleven forty two."

"They guy had opportunity." Tony drove to the Hospital just to make sure his timing was right.

"And motive, Dr Travis said he couldn't date a women who was married."

Tony nodded, "But maybe he could date a widow."

Like Tony thought, they had got to the Hospital in ten minutes. The two of them headed back to the hotel to tell Gibbs what they had found out.

* * *

><p>It was almost evening when Abby phoned Gibbs to tell him the fingerprints had arrived, the four of them had just gotten back from having an afternoon out in LA. Gibbs knew his team had been working none stop since they got there, having two cases back to back, so seeing as there was nothing much they could do until Abby got back with the results he figured they could have a little time off.<p>

After Abby had phoned and they had arrived back at the hotel the four of them talked in Gibbs room about the case, recapping on what they had found out, and who they thought the murderer or murderers were.

All eyes were on Gibbs when almost two hours later, the cellphone he had been holding in his hand rang, he flipped it open and put it to his ear, "What have you got Abs?" He paused for a moment, the others tried to read his face but couldn't, "Does anyone other than you and Ducky know?"

Tony, Ziva and McGee watched Gibbs intently as they tried to work out what was being said on the other end.

"Good, keep it that way. And Good work Abs." He closed his cell, and threw a set of car keys, "McGee you drive."

McGee caught the keys, "Right Boss."

The three of them didn't need to ask where they were going as they followed their boss out to the car, Gibbs' side of the conversation answered it all for them.

* * *

><p>Mark, Steve and Jesse stood talking and laughing outside the Doctors Lounge, Jesse had gotten back to his usually cheery self after Steve, Mark and Amanda had reassured him that he hadn't done anything wrong, so he had nothing to worry about.<p>

The three of them turned in confusion as Gibbs and his team strode towards them and showed their badges.

Tony grabbed hold of Jesse's arm, "Dr Jesse Travis, you're under arrest for the murder of Petty Officer Vincent Samuals, anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law..."

"This is ridiculous, Jesse didn't kill anybody!" Steve shouted.

"You can't do this!" Mark added.

Tony put cuffs on Jesse and started leading him away. Jesse looked back desperately at Mark and Steve.

Tony and Gibbs both looked at each other as the four of them headed out of the Hospital with Jesse, Mark and Steve following close behind.

"Don't worry Jess, I'll get you out of this!" Steve called out.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Dad, I don't think I can get him out of this." Steve frowned as he came back from looking at Jesse's file, "All the evidence points to Jesse, no one knows where he was when the murder actually took place, his fingerprints were all over the murder weapon..."

"Steve, Jesse didn't do this...he's being framed!" Mark replied, without a doubt in his mind.

The two of them stood at Steve's Desk in the Los Angeles Police Department, there was a lot of noise and disgruntled looking LAPD Officers.

"I know that Dad, but it's gonna be hard to prove otherwise, really hard."

"Then we'll just have to do a little snooping around." Mark said with a sparkle in his eye.

"Now why do I always get a cold shiver down my spine when you say that?" Steve grinned, sitting down at his desk.

"You know what I don't understand, why are NCIS interrogating Jesse here when they've already arrested him?" Mark wondered, "Wouldn't taking him back to NCIS make more sense?"

Gibbs and his team had took over the interrogation room at the Police Department to interrogate Jesse, the sudden presence of Federal Agents proving displeasing for the Police Officers who worked there.

"I don't know Dad, why do Feds do anything?" Steve put his feet up on the desk and frowned, he wasn't too happy when Gibbs had banned him and Mark from witnessing the interrogation.

The two of them looked over at McGee who was trying to calm the Officers down, neither of them envied him much.

* * *

><p>Tony and Ziva watched Jesse through the two way mirror; the young Doctor was pacing the small interrogation room, every so often he would sit down for a moment before getting back up and pacing again. Gibbs was ready, but he was taking his time, making Jesse wait, that way the Doctor would be so nervous by the time Gibbs got there it would just be a matter of scaring the truth out of him, that was the theory anyway, and as far as Tony and Ziva were concerned, it was working.<p>

"Do you think Gibbs' guts right about him?" Tony didn't take his eyes off Jesse as he spoke.

Ziva turned to Tony, "I won't know until Gibbs interrogates him."

The interrogation door flew open and Gibbs walked in, "Sit down." He told Jesse quietly, taking a seat himself.

Jesse sat on the chair across from Gibbs, the only thing separating the two was the table in the middle of the room. Gibbs put a file on the desk and opened it up, taking a photograph out of Samuals body, he turned it around and pushed it towards Jesse.

"I didn't do it Special Agent Gibbs, I didn't kill Samuals." Jesse frowned as he looked at the photograph.

Gibbs took out some papers from the file, one was a photograph of the murder weapon and the other was what Abby had sent to McGee's laptop with the fingerprints results on, "The evidence says otherwise." He spoke as quietly as before, "Dr Travis where were you at the time of the murder?"

"I already told Special Agent DiNozzo and Special Agent McGee, I was making a house call."

"That's not what Miss Martins said, according to her you left her house at eleven am, the shooting only happened at eleven-o-nine." Gibbs sat back in his chair, "My Agents tested it out, to get from Miss Martins house to Samuals trailer took them five minutes. That would have given you plenty of time to shoot the victim."

Jesse ran his hands through his hair, "No, that's not what happened. After I visited Miss Martins I went for a drive around, I just needed a little time alone so I went the long way around to the Hospital, I never even passed the crime scene."

"But nobody saw you?"

"I don't know, I don't think so," Jesse suddenly stood up, looking edgy, "Look, I wasn't paying attention, I didn't know there was going to be a murder, I didn't know I was going to be a suspect so I didn't feel the need to make sure people saw me!" He started pacing again.

Gibbs shot to his feet, "Sit down!" He screamed.

Jesse almost fell onto his seat, staring at Gibbs like a Deer with it's head caught in the headlights.

"Do you wanna know what I think?" Gibbs leaned over the table, "I think you loved Shelly Samuals so much that you would do anything to be with her. Something in you however wouldn't allow you to date her if she was still married, but you had no problem dating a widow so you stole her gun on the day Petty Officer Samuals approached you and spent the rest of the week organising his murder. You knew where he was living because Mrs Samuals had told you, so you picked a house a few minutes drive away from the trailer and told the other Doctors you were making a house call. You went to Miss Martins house and pretended to have gotten a phone call from her, she told you to leave and you drove off to the trailer, the brief encounter with Veronica Martins giving you an alibi. You got out of your car, went up to the trailer and knocked on the door, telling Samuals you needed to talk, he let you in, and you shot him. You then got back into your car and drove back to Community General Hospital, quickly got into your scrubs and waited for the EMT's to arrive with Samuals."

Jesse shook his head through all of that, "You're wrong, none of that happened, I didn't shoot anyone. I'm a Doctor, I don't take lives, I save them."

"Your fingerprints were all over the murder weapon." Gibbs tapped his finger on the photograph of the gun, "We found it at Shelly Samuals house, an hour or so after you paid her a visit yesterday, in the kitchen, were you put it."

"That's not true, I've never even touched that gun I..." He stopped talking suddenly, a memory flashed through his mind, "Shelly, Shelly told me to pass her some, some Vitamins from her bedside cabinet, I opened the wrong drawer and found the gun, so I picked it up and showed it to her, asking if she had a permit, she told me she did and it was just there for her protection, so I put it back again. That was about three weeks ago, and I never saw the gun again."

"So you admit to knowing where the gun was."

Jesse looked at Gibbs in frustration, "My friend is a Police Officer, I help out on murder investigations, why would I plant the gun without wiping my fingerprints off it first or better still, wear gloves?"

Tony and Ziva stayed quiet as they watched the interrogation. Ziva's complete attention stayed on Jesse. Gibbs had made sure he sat on the chair facing the mirror so Ziva could watch him.

"The Doctor's telling the truth, he didn't kill Petty Officer Samuals."

Tony turned to Ziva as she said this, "You sure?"

She nodded and they both turned their attentions back to the interrogation room, Gibbs was now standing next to Jesse's seat.

"So you think Shelly Samuals is framing you?" Gibbs asked.

"No...maybe, I don't know." He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, "Why would she?"

"Well then who the hell is?" He shouted in frustration, grabbing the back of Jesse's chair.

Jesse jumped, "I don't know."

Gibbs pushed himself away from the chair and walked out of the interrogation room. Tony and Ziva rushed to Gibbs.

"Your gut was correct Gibbs, Dr Travis did not kill Petty Officer Samuals."

Gibbs looked at her, "Yeah, I got that Ziva."

* * *

><p>"Dad not a word, let me handle this." Steve told Mark as they both stormed over to Gibbs when they heard the interrogation was over.<p>

"Someone is framing him!" Steve announced as he got to Gibbs.

"I know." Gibbs answered.

"And I don't care what the evidence says, Jesse did not kill that Petty Officer." Steve continued.

"I know."

"Jesse Travis is an innocent man!"

"I know."

Steve suddenly stopped talking and looked at Gibbs, "You know?"

Gibbs nodded, "I know."

Steve looked over at Mark who was trying to hide a grin, "Why didn't you tell me he knew?"

"You told me not to say anything." He answered innocently.

"Great, now you do what I say." Steve rolled his eyes good naturedly.

Mark looked at Gibbs, "All the evidence says Jesse's guilty, what makes you believe he's innocent?"

Gibbs told the two of them about the conversation he'd had with his team. Tony, McGee and Ziva were all sure it was Jesse but something in Gibbs gut didn't feel right. He couldn't take his mind of the fact there was no sign of forced entry.

"Why would Samuals just let Travis into his trailer?" Gibbs asked, "Why would he want to see the guy who had his wife had been having an affair with?"

"He wouldn't." Mark answered, "So, what do you plan to do with Jesse now?"

Gibbs explained that he would try to keep the evidence against Jesse from the Director of NCIS for as long as possible, but he also told Mark and Steve that it wouldn't be long before the Director found out so they would need to keep Jesse under NCIS surveillance at all times to cover there own backs, plus the fact Jesse could be in danger if someone was framing him, somebody obviously had something against him. Mark suggested they stay at his Beach House and watch over Jesse there seen as Jesse's apartment was so small. Gibbs accepted his offer.

* * *

><p>Jesse sat alone in the interrogation room, unaware of what was being said outside. He was going through everything that had just happened in his mind. All of the evidence pointed to him and he knew he was going to prison for a very long time unless whoever was framing him was found. Jesse didn't like the fact Shelly was the most obvious suspect, he just couldn't bring himself to believe she would do this to him.<p>

Jesse's head shot towards the door when he heard it opening, he breathed a sigh of relief when Steve walked into the interrogation room, "Steve!" He jumped up and walked to him.

"You OK Jess?"

He started to pace the room looking agitated, "All the evidence says I did it Steve, I have no real alibi, I have a motive, my fingerprints are even on the murder weapon...I'm screwed."

Steve put both of his hands onto Jesse's shoulder to stop him from moving, "They know you didn't do it."

"They?"

"NCIS." Steve elaborated, leaving go of his shoulders.

Jesse stared at him in awe, "What did you and Mark say to them?"

"Say to them?" Steve shook his head, "No Jess, Gibbs already had an idea that you were being framed, he just had to make sure."

"You mean he interrogates like that when he thinks you're innocent?"

Steve laughed and then started to explain what would be happening. Jesse wasn't thrilled about having an NCIS escort everywhere he went, to him it felt as though they didn't really trust him, that feeling turned to concern when Steve told him it was to keep him safe.

"You mean I'm in danger?"

"No Jess, it's just a precaution."

Jesse was much happier when Steve told him Mark had invited them to stay at the Beach House however. He loved the beach and hanging out with Mark and Steve, although he had a feeling that this wouldn't be quite as enjoyable as it usually was.

* * *

><p>Jesse stood on the balcony, leaning on the wooden rails, watching the sunrise, there was something about watching it from the beach that always made it even more special.<p>

When they arrived at the Beach House Mark had shown Gibbs and McGee around whilst Steve and Jesse waited for them upstairs in Marks part of the Beach House. Once Mark had finished giving the tour Gibbs had explained to Jesse what would be happening. Jesse hadn't realised that he wouldn't be allowed back at the Hospital until they had at least proven he was being framed. He tried to get Steve to make them change their minds but instead the Detective agreed with NCIS, explaining that although it was unfair, if it was the Police leading the investigation they would have stopped him too.

After that Jesse's mood just got worse and worse, as far as he could see he was just being held in a much prettier looking prison, he couldn't do the job he loved, he couldn't really do anything to help with the investigation, like snoop around or talk with suspects and he couldn't go out of the house without an NCIS agent being with him.

That was why he'd gone out on the balcony in the first place, because he had stormed off, asking before he went out if he allowed to stand there, or did one of the Agents have to stand there with him, Gibbs told him it was fine as long as they could see him, and Jesse just walked out and looked over at the beach.

He'd been there a good half hour or so before Mark went out and stood next to him.

"It's not fair Doc, none of this is fair." Jesse looked at Mark.

"You're right Jesse, it isn't."

"I've had a lot of time to think you know, and, the more I think the more I realise this is all partly my fault."

Mark frowned, "Jesse, none of this is you're fault."

"You tried to warn me didn't you?" Jesse looked at Mark, "You knew something was a little off about Shelly."

Mark nodded, rubbing his finger across his moustache, "I had my suspicions, but that's all they were...suspicions."

Mark had found it a little odd for Shelly, a single woman to be living alone in a house that size. She was young, her family weren't particularly rich and her job paid no more than Jesse's. He just felt that she wasn't being completely truthful with Jesse, although he had no proof and it was all speculation on his part. He definitely wasn't surprised however when he found out that Shelly was married.

"I knew you were trying to warn me about something, but I didn't listen, I didn't wanna listen because I didn't want there to be anything wrong," Jesse turned away from Mark and looked over at the beach, it'd gotten much lighter now, "I should have listened to you Doc."

Mark put his hand on Jesse's shoulder, "Jesse, you trusted someone who you cared a lot about, nobody can blame you for that."

"You know, I didn't even believe it when her husband came and confronted me about it. How deluded am I?"

"Jesse, don't beat yourself up about this," Mark told him, "We'll find who did this."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Well you have me, Steve and Amanda working on the case, as well as NCIS, surely we can come up with something together." He smiled, knowing Amanda would want to help once she found out about it.

Jesse nodded, "I just wish I could help though, and be involved...instead I'm just stuck here, doing nothing."

"Just think of it as a vacation," Mark replied, "And anyway, this isn't a bad place to be stuck in."

Jesse laughed, he felt a lot better talking it all through with Mark. The man always had a knack for cheering him up.

* * *

><p>"I'm gonna be lying in bed, staring at them same four white washed walls again, it's just not fair." Tony complained as he drove back to the hotel with Ziva. It was in the early hours of the morning, they were both hoping to catch a few z's before continuing with their investigation.<p>

"Oh will you stop moaning Tony, all you've done is complain since we got in to the car!"

His head shot towards Ziva, "You mean you're not the slightest bit bother that McNo-Tan gets to stay at the Beach House and we don't?"

Gibbs' didn't want to put Mark through too much trouble so he decided that only two of them would spend the night at the Beach House at a time.

"McGee and Gibbs are only staying there until the afternoon Tony, then we're staying through until tomorrow morning."

"It's still not fair." He stopped at some lights.

"We get to stay there longer, how is that unfair?"

He turned to her, "Because I'm the Senior Field Agent, I should get to go there first!"

She started to laugh and shook her head, "Why am I not surprised?"

"What?" Tony asked as the lights changed and he carried on driving, Ziva didn't answer, he concentrated on the road and mumbled, "We'll probably crack the case before I even get a chance to set foot in that Beach House."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Amanda hadn't been very happy when the first she heard about Jesse's arrest was from Nurse Philips. The Pathologist instantly phoned the Police Station, unluckily for Steve who answered and got the full brunt of her wrath. After she gave Steve an earful and he explained to her what was going on she went straight to the Beach House and scolded Mark too. Mark was planning on phoning her when her shift at the Hospital started, not feeling a need to disturb her and her baby son when everything was as under control as it could be in the situation they were in, but with everything that had been happening however he had eventually forgotten all about it. The only person who managed to escape her wrath was Jesse, which was one thing about the whole situation he felt lucky about.

It was afternoon now and Jesse was busily writing down the names of everyone who might have something against him. Ziva and Tony had just arrived at the Beach House, Gibbs gave Tony a look as his Senior Field Agent kept asking McGee, 'Why are you still here?'. Tony still didn't think it was fair that the Junior Field Agent got to stay there first. Mark and Amanda had gone to the Hospital, they both had shifts they needed to be on. Jesse had felt envious when he watched them go.

Jesse wrote about a dozen names on the sheet of paper and passed it to Steve.

Tony caught a glimpse of the paper, noticing there weren't many names on it, "Is that all the people?" Jesse nodded in response.

McGee grinned, "You know, when you were being framed Tony we could have filled up an encyclopedia with the amount of people that had a grudge against you."

"I've busted a lot of people." Tony replied defensively.

"And had a lot of one night stands." Ziva chipped in.

"You were framed?" Jesse asked.

"Yeah, I had to stay in a prison cell too, with a stinky old toilet and the thinnest mattress you could imagine," Tony grimaced, "Bad times, bad times..."

Jesse was about to ask Tony some more questions when Steve interrupted, "Jesse, why's my name on this list?"

"Because Agent Gibbs told me to write down anyone who has threatened me," The young Doctor gave him an innocent, if not slightly mischievous look, "And it was only last week that you threatened to shoot me if I ate your sandwich."

"It didn't stop you from doing it." Steve gave him a sarcastic look, then gave the list to Gibbs.

Gibbs held the paper away from his face and squinted his eyes, "You haven't put Shelly Samuals on here."

"That's because I don't think she has anything to do with this." Jesse replied, "Didn't you say she had an alibi?"

"Yeah, she was out having brunch with friends, the guy at the diner confirmed it." Tony answered.

"Out to brunch?"

"Yeah, why...is there something unusual about that?" Gibbs noticed Jesse's surprised tone.

"Oh it's just, Shelly usually works from home on a Wednesday morning, sometimes she has friends over, sometimes she doesn't, it really just depends how busy she is."

"So, going out to brunch is unusual." It wasn't a question this time.

Jesse looked at Gibbs, "Yeah, but peoples schedules get changed all the time, that doesn't really mean anything, does it?"

Gibbs didn't respond to his question, instead he asked about all the other names. They were mostly jealous guys from Med School who didn't graduate, with a few family members of murderers he'd helped Mark and Steve to catch also on the list. None of them seemed all that relevant to the case though, he gave the list to McGee anyway and told him to run the names through his computer.

"DiNozzo, Ziva, go to that diner and find out exactly when she went in and when she went out...I wanna know everything!" Gibbs told them.

Tony looked at him pleadingly, "But Boss, we only just got here."

"And?"

"And I thought, I mean you said me and Ziva were staying here until tomorrow morning so..." Gibbs just stared unemotionally at his Senior field Agent, "We'll get right on it boss." Tony sighed, looking defeated.

* * *

><p>Tony and Ziva walked into the diner Shelly had reportedly been in around the time of her husbands murder. It was a modern looking diner that still had a traditional touch, the place was reasonably busy and the food smelled nice. The two of them walked up to the man who looked like he was in charge.<p>

"Mr Hill?" Tony asked.

"Yeah?" The man replied.

Tony flipped out his badge, "Special Agent DiNozzo, NCIS, this is Officer David, I spoke to you over the phone two days ago."

"Yeah, I remember," The Diner was starting to get busier and the man didn't look very pleased about being disturbed, "Listen I told you everything I know over the phone, what more do you want?"

"We need to know what time Shelly Samuals came in here and what time she left." Tony explained.

"I don't know, about ten fifteen in the morning, and I already told you what time she left, it was eleven o'clock."

The time Shelly left is what gave her an alibi; she wouldn't have been able to get to the trailer in time to have killed her husband. Although they knew she could have paid somebody else to do it for her. Jesse had said that it was unusual for her to come to the Diner on a Wednesday morning, which lead them to believe that she might have changed her schedule to make sure somebody saw her.

"Did Shelly Samuals leave with the people she came in with?" Ziva asked.

"Yes she did, and no I didn't look which way she went, I had better things to do, like I do now...so if that's all I'll get back to work." He didn't wait for a reply and got back to work anyway.

Tony looked at the clock on the wall, and then looked at his own watch, the clock on the wall was about ten minutes fast, "Hey, your clocks about ten minutes fast, how long's it been like that?"

Mr Hill answered without even facing him, "I don't know."

Tony rolled his eyes and turned to Ziva, "If that clock was fast on Wednesday do you think she could have got to that trailer on time?"

"To the trailer from here takes about seventeen minutes, so yes it is possible, but she would have had to drive fast."

"But if we don't know how long the clocks been wrong then..." Tony was stopped mid sentence by a tap on his shoulder, he turned around to see a tall, attractive waitress with dark curly hair.

"That clocks been like that since I started working here over a year ago, Mr Hill puts it ten minutes fast so that he can sell lunch sooner, he thinks he'll make more money that way."

They asked the waitress if she was there on Wednesday and she told them she was. She saw Shelly come in with her friends but she didn't notice when Shelly left. Tony grabbed a sandwich and they headed back to the Beach House.

* * *

><p>They hadn't been at the Hospital an hour when Mark went into Amanda's Pathology Lab asking her if she would help him do a little snooping around. Now Mark was standing in front of Shelly Samuals house, knocking on the door.<p>

Shelly opened it, "Dr Sloan, what a surprise, please, come in."

"I was just in the neighbourhood and wanted to see how you were doing." Mark smiled and walked inside the house.

"It's still a bit of a shock, but I'm holding up."

A man with fair hair, wearing a blue shirt, yellow tie and dark blue jeans was sat on her couch, he looked over at the two of them.

"Have you met my brother Carl?"

The two men greeted each other. Shelly saw Mark looking over at the photo's of her and her husband that had suddenly appeared on the fire place. They hadn't been there the day that he went there with Jesse. After Mark had invited her to lunch with Jesse at the Beach House, Shelly invited the two of them to her house for a meal.

"I never wanted to lie Jesse, or my husband you know," She picked up one of the photo's, "I can't believe Jesse's been arrested for Vics murder."

"Oh, you heard about that?"

Carl turned around to them both, "It was in the paper this morning, I couldn't believe it when I saw it, the Doctor just doesn't seem the type."

"Carl came over here to show me, I don't believe Jesse would murder anyone," She put the photo back, "You're his friend Dr Sloan, and your son too, surely you must both know Jesse hasn't done this."

Mark nodded, "Luckily NCIS are on our side too, they know he's innocent."

"Why's he still in custody then?" Carl got up and stood next to them both.

"He isn't, NCIS released him early this morning," Mark told them, "They think Jesse's being framed."

"Framed, by who?" Shelly looked shocked, "Who would want to frame Jesse?"

"Well actually the main suspect is you Shelly." Mark told her matter-of-factly.

"Me?"

"Hey, my sister didn't kill anyone!" Carl put his arm around Shelly, "I think you should leave Dr Sloan."

Mark apologised for causing any offense and was just about to open the door and leave when Shelly stopped him.

"No wait, does Jesse think I'm the one framing him?" Shelly asked, seemingly desperate to know the answer.

Mark looked back and shook his head, "No, Jesse thinks you're innocent."

"And you," She looked Mark straight in the eyes, "What do you think Dr Sloan?"

"I think Jesse still cares a lot about you," Mark turned back to the door and opened it, letting himself out, he looked back at Shelly, "I'm sorry about your husband."

"Thank you Dr Sloan." She closed the door gently behind him.

Mark was a little disappointed, with her brother Carl being there he hadn't been able to do any snooping around, and although Shelly had seemed genuinely surprised that Jesse had been arrested and she was doing her best to defend Jesse, Mark knew she could have just been bluffing to take the focus of herself, but he also thought it wouldn't do any harm to look at other possible leads.

* * *

><p>Amanda walked into the convenience store that Shelly's cousin Dylan works in. The small store had two rows of shelves in the centre, packed with a small selection of groceries, candy, processed food as well as toiletries and hygiene products. There was a refrigerator next to the counter full of soft drinks and a rack of newspapers and magazines next to the door.<p>

There were two men in the store; an older stockier looking man, with a shaved head and a green apron with a name tag that had 'Hank' written on it was stood at the till, he looked like he was in charge, and a younger smaller man with fair hair, also wearing a green apron, was stacking the shelves. Amanda had a feeling that the younger man was probably Shelly's cousin.

She grabbed a newspaper with the story about Jesse on the front, took a few cans of food from a shelf and headed to the counter, placing the items on it. The older man started to run the cans through the till and placed them into a paper carrier bag.

"It's shocking to think a Doctor could have something to do with that Petty Officers murder." Amanda said as the man took the newspaper.

"With the world we live in nowadays I'm afraid to say nothing surprises me much anymore." Hank placed the newspaper into the bag.

"You know, I heard that the Police think he's being framed, apparently they released him this morning." She gossiped.

"Yeah, well I'm not interested much in rumours." He looked over at the younger man, it was obvious he didn't want to discuss the case in front of him.

"Apparently the Doctor was having an affair with the Petty Officers wife," She continued regardless, "And rumour has it that she's the one who murdered her husband and she's the one framing the Doctor."

The younger man suddenly stopped what he was doing and stormed over, "Hey, she didn't kill anyone Lady, so why don't you just pay up, take your stuff and leave!"

"Well I never!" Amanda huffed, looking offended.

"Hey!" The older man shouted, "Get back to work Dylan."

"Shelly didn't kill Vic and she didn't frame Jesse Travis!"

Amanda looked at Dylan, "You know them?"

"The victims wife is Dylan's cousin." Hank told her.

"Oh, I had no idea," She lied, "I didn't mean to cause any offense, I should go."

"Don't give me that, you know who I am and you know for a fact Jesse's been released, so who are you working for, the Police, NCIS or the Sloan's?" He demanded, "My sister told me that my cousin Carl had already phoned my parents telling them that Dr Sloan had been snooping around."

Amanda looked at her watch, "Oh, is that the time, I should go."

Dylan followed after Amanda as she rushed out of the shop, "You leave my cousin alone, she's been through enough already!"

Amanda turned to him, "Yeah, well so has Jesse."

* * *

><p>Tony and Ziva were taking Jesse to his apartment so that the young Doctor could grab some of his clothes, none of them were sure how long he'd have to stay at the Beach House so a change of clothing would probably be necessary. The two of them could have collected the clothes for him but Gibbs figured it'd be good for Jesse to get out of the Beach House for a while or else he'd really think like he was in some sort of prison.<p>

Jesse sat behind the two Agents, listening to them bicker about who should be driving. Ziva wanted to drive but Tony had gotten to the keys first, telling her, 'Hey we wanna get Travis, and myself for that matter to the apartment in one piece Zee-Vah!', hearing that Jesse couldn't help but wonder how bad of a driver Ziva actually was, although he wasn't to find out as it was Tony who drove the car.

Once they got to Jesse's apartment the two of them waited in his very small living area as Jesse went into his bedroom to get his clothes. Tony looked around the room at the heart wallpaper.

"Did you pick this wallpaper out yourself?" He called to Jesse.

"No, I just haven't had time to change it," Jesse called back, "I'm usually too busy with work, and studying and helping to solve..."

There was suddenly a loud crashing noise coming from the bedroom, Tony and Ziva both readied their guns.

"Jesse?" Tony called out as the two of them went to his room.

Ziva opened the door and they both went into the room with their guns at the ready, they saw Jesse lying on the floor, surrounded by wood. When he'd opened the door to get his clothes the wardrobe had collapsed. He started to push the wardrobe door off himself.

Tony put his gun back into it's holster and helped Jesse to his feet, "Are you OK?"

"I...think so." Jesse was a little shook up but apart from a few grazes he seemed OK.

Tony and Ziva started to check the apartment to see whether the wardrobe incident was an accident, or foul play.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Mark sat on the Coffee table in front of Jesse, cleaning and dressing a sore looking graze on the young Doctors upper right arm, "OK, that should do it." Mark smiled.

Jesse looked at the dressing, "Thanks Doc."

Tony and Ziva took Jesse back to the Beach House once they'd finished looking around his apartment. They couldn't find any sign of forced entry, but the wardrobe had definitely been tampered with. All of the screws had either been loosened or removed, and the top was just balancing over the sides and doors below, having been separated from the wardrobe completely.

The two of them didn't need to do much investigating to find out how the culprit had managed to get into the apartment, it turned out Jesse kept a spare key under his doormat. Steve scolded the young Doctor about it, apparently he'd told him on a number of occasions that it was a bad idea to hide a key there.

Whilst Gibbs and his team went into the kitchen, along with Steve, to sort out the evidence Tony and Ziva had collected from Jesse's apartment, Mark filled Jesse in on what he and Amanda had found out, which wasn't really all that much. Amanda however was now convinced that the murderer had to be Dylan, based solely on how he had reacted at the grocery store. Mark however wasn't so sure.

"So, it seems you three have got a little investigation going on of your own." Gibbs stood in the doorway.

Mark laughed sheepishly, "Sorry, it's my fault, I wanted to do a little snooping around so I asked Amanda to give me a hand, I'm a bit of an amateur sleuth you see and..."

"You get used to it," Steve walked into the room, then gave Mark a sarcastic grin, "Never gets any less annoying though."

"Yeah, well I don't want to get used to it, and I don't want Civilians investigating my case."

Jesse chirped up, "But Dr Sloan's a consultant for the LAPD."

"I'm not LAPD, and neither is this case so I don't care if he's a consultant, I don't even care that he's good at it." Gibbs noticed their surprised looks and turned to Mark, "I read your file Doc."

"Believe me Agent Gibbs I know how frustrating it gets when they start snooping around, but it's not like they did any harm."

Gibbs pointed at Jesse, "You sure about that Lieutenant?"

"Am I sure..." Steve suddenly looked irritated, "Hey, I hope you're not implying that what happened to Jesse is my Dad and Amanda's fault!"

"All I know is that after they went off snooping around someone snuck into his apartment and tampered with his wardrobe."

Jesse and Mark watched as the two of them argued, it wasn't long before Tony, Ziva and McGee stopped what they were doing and curiously watched Gibbs and Steve from the doorway. Mark tried to cool the situation down but to no avail, he couldn't get a word in edge ways, and Jesse didn't have much luck either, all the young Doctor wanted to tell them was that he didn't blame Mark and Amanda for what happened. When it seemed that all else had failed, Mark did what he thought was the most useful thing, whistled. The two of them stopped arguing and looked at him.

"Thank you." Mark looked at them both, "Steve, Gibbs is right, I shouldn't have done any snooping around without telling him first."

"You shouldn't have done any 'snooping around' at all Doc."

Mark couldn't help but look a little disappointed when Gibbs said that, but it wouldn't deter him, he'd just have to be sneakier, a lot sneakier, "It won't happen again Agent Gibbs."

"You're damn right it won't."

"Hey what's you're problem, my Dad's solved more cases than..."

"You?" Gibbs challenged.

The argument rose up again, although Steve wasn't actually arguing with what Gibbs had just said, instead he continued with the argument from before. Gibbs' team seemed to find the whole thing more entertaining than anything else, the only thing they were missing was popcorn and soda. Mark didn't need to whistle this time as Steve stopped the argument for him, by storming out of the house, saying something about needing to 'get out of here for a while'.

Without even turning around to his team Gibbs called out, "McGee you're with me, once you've all finished gawking that is."

Tony, McGee and Ziva all stared at each other, trying to figure out how he knew they were there, they couldn't see any mirrors. When Gibbs looked around at them impatiently the three of them moved from the doorway, Tony and Ziva got back to putting the evidence into boxes and McGee rushed over to Gibbs' side.

As the two of them headed to the door Gibbs stopped and turned to Mark, "Oh, and Doc, when you're not snooping around I want you to let me know."

A smile suddenly appeared on Marks face and he nodded.

Gibbs gave a nod in return and left with McGee.

"Boss I don't understand," McGee followed Gibbs to the car, "Why are you letting Dr Sloan investigate, I thought you didn't want him to."

Gibbs stopped and faced McGee.

McGee thought about his own question for a moment, "Because you know he'll just do it anyway."

Gibbs gave a quick smile and raised an eyebrow.

"Which is better because...because if knows he doesn't need to sneak around, and he knows he can tell us then it'll be safer for him."

Gibbs smiled, then turned and walked the rest of the way to the car.

* * *

><p>Ziva stood outside of Jesse's room; about a half hour after the three men had left the young Doctor decided he would call it a night. A question had been eating at Tony for days now and he walked over to Mark hoping to find the answer.<p>

"Doc, can I ask you something?" Tony sat next to Mark on the couch.

"Of course."

"How did you know I was using the cup to get Jesse's fingerprints?"

Mark smiled, "Well firstly you didn't really need to use both hands to take out a notepad and pen, plus if you wanted to impress Amanda like it seemed then you wouldn't have asked for help."

"Yeah, too bad she's married with a baby boy," Tony suddenly looked uncomfortable, "What I meant to say is... I'm very happy for her, obviously." He laughed awkwardly, then turned to Mark, "So, what's the secondly?"

"You held the cup at the bottom."

"So you got the whole fingerprints thing just from that?"

Mark nodded and Tony couldn't help but feel impressed by the Doctors observational skills. Their conversation had left the Special Agent feeling a lot better, knowing that the reason Mark had caught onto him was because the Doctor was so good, not because Tony messed up.

* * *

><p>After Gibbs and McGee left the Beach House they went straight to Jesse's apartment and asked around to find out if anyone had seen anything. It turned out the Janitor saw 'the Docs girlfriend' walking away from the apartment at about four thirty pm, an hour or so before the wardrobe incident had happened. After they'd talked to the Janitor the two of them went to Shelly's apartment and told her they needed to take her in for questioning.<p>

Steve was at the Police Station when they got there so Gibbs said that he could stay in the interrogation room whilst Shelly was being questioned providing he let McGee do all the talking. Steve agreed, knowing it would make Jesse feel better him being there. Gibbs and Steve's earlier dispute seemed to be behind them now. Gibbs knew Steve was just defending his father. And Mark had called Steve to tell him what Gibbs had said after he left, which surprised Steve, especially since Gibbs seemed so adamant that his father and friends weren't to do any investigating. It seemed that the more time he spent with Gibbs the less he could figure him out, he appeared to be doing everything he could to help Jesse though, which was all that mattered as far as Steve was concerned.

Gibbs stood in the observation room, coffee cup in hand and watched through the two way mirror as Steve and McGee entered the interrogation room where Shelly Samuals was waiting. She was sat on the same chair Jesse had been sat on the night before.

Shelly stood up as soon as she saw the two men, "Lt. Sloan, I don't understand, what am I..."

"I'm not even here, talk to Agent McGee." Steve cut her off and stood casually against the wall that was facing the door.

She turned her attention to McGee, "What am I doing here?"

McGee sat in the seat opposite hers and started to fill Shelly in on what had happened with the wardrobe.

Her hand flew to her mouth, "Oh my...is Jesse OK?"

McGee nodded, "We also discovered that the wardrobe had been tampered with, and we believe that whoever tampered with the wardrobe is somehow involved in your husbands murder."

Shelly frowned at McGee, "And you think that someone is me?"

"We have a witness who saw you walking from Jesse Travis' apartment late this afternoon, just hours before the wardrobe collapsed." McGee told her, "What were you doing there Mrs Samuals?"

"Dr Sloan told me Jesse had been released, I just wanted to make sure he was OK so I went over to his apartment, when I got there he wasn't home so I left."

"So you didn't enter his apartment at all this afternoon?" Steve moved closer to them, she shook her head in response, "And you don't know about the key Jesse hides under his doormat?"

"Oh I know about the key, Jesse said you don't like him keeping it there," She looked at Steve, "Lt. Sloan I would never do anything to hurt Jesse, not intentionally, please, you've gotta believe that."

McGee tried to regain her attention by asking if she'd told anyone else about the key, she said she may have mentioned it to her friends but she wasn't sure. Shelly also pointed out that even if she hadn't it wouldn't be that hard for someone to find the key, echoing the reason Steve disliked Jesse's 'hiding place'. Gibbs observed the whole thing carefully, whilst slowly taking sips of his coffee, Steve's contribution hadn't surprised him, in fact he was more surprised the Lieutenant hadn't asked more questions. Shelly was free to go after they were done questioning her.

* * *

><p>Tony strode into the kitchen the next morning and went to take a pancake from Ziva's plate before noticing the fork in her hand and deciding against it. Instead he took a pancake from Jesse's plate, "Hey these are great Doc." He complimented Mark, with a mouthful of pancake and headed towards the Deck.<p>

"I wouldn't know." Jesse mumbled, looking down at his half empty plate.

Ziva turned around on her stool curiously, "Tony, where are you going?"

"To the beach, where else?"

"And Gibbs?" Ziva questioned.

"Gibbs doesn't need to...' Tony suddenly stopped talking and went very still, "He's right behind me isn't he?"

The three just watched.

"Hey boss, I was just telling Ziva that she didn't need to tell you about having pancake for ow!" Tony's eye's widened as Gibbs gave him a head-slap, "Thank you boss."

"You know Hitting people on the head has been known to cause brain damage." Mark informed.

"It shouldn't affect DiNozzo then." Gibbs replied, Mark couldn't help but smile at his reply.

Tony looked bewildered by what he meant by the comment, "Boss?"

Gibbs, along with Steve and McGee filled the four of them in on what they'd found out. Jesse didn't like the way the conversation was heading when Shelly's name was mentioned, and he certainly didn't like it when he found out they took her to the Police Station for questioning.

"You took Shelly in for questioning without even telling me?"

Jesse's tone grated on Gibbs, "I wasn't aware I needed to ask your permission, for some reason I was under the impression that this was my investigation."

Mark quickly tried to cool the situation down, and asked for McGee to continue.

"And don't worry, I was in the interrogation room the whole time." Steve told him once McGee had finished telling them what had been said.

"And you being there is supposed to make it better?"

"Well, that was the idea Jess." Steve replied.

"You know something like this happened to me once." Everyone turned to Tony as he spoke, "Yeah, you see I was working undercover, obviously I can't tell you all the details, but anyway we were after this guy and I needed to pretend to date his daughter in order for us to get to him, well anyway after a while and I actually fell in love with her, but when she found out who I was she..."

"How is this anything like what's happening here?" Jesse interrupted.

Tony thought about it for a moment, "I don't know, but it's opened up a lot of bad memories though," He frowned, " Will you excuse me?" He started to walk off gingerly towards the deck.

"DiNozzo, get away from the beach!" Gibbs shouted over his shoulder.

Tony lowered his shoulders and slumped into the nearest deck chair, his plan of escape being thwarted.

* * *

><p>Jesse was carrying a medical book in his hand, as well as some notes as he walked sheepishly up to Gibbs who was sat on the couch, "Hey, I've just been doing some studying."<p>

"I see that." Gibbs replied.

Jesse sat down next to him and started to ramble, "Listen about before, I shouldn't have reacted the way I did, I know you're all just trying to help, and I really do appreciate it. It's just that, I guess I'm scared Shelly might actually be behind all this, and if she is then that means she was just using me to get rid of her husband. And, and if that's true then everything about our relationship was a lie, she never cared about me, she just picked me because I'm so gullible...I don't even know what to think anymore."

"What does you're gut say?"

Jesse looked at him, "My gut?"

"Yeah," Gibbs nodded, "Gut instinct, what does it tell you?"

"That she's innocent," Jesse answered, fidgeting with his dark green t-shirt, "But the evidence says it's Shelly."

"The evidence also points at you too." Gibbs pointed out.

Jesse hadn't thought of it that way, "So what do you think Agent Gibbs?"

"I think we're missing...something."

"Like what?" The young Doctor asked curiously.

"If I knew that then we wouldn't be missing it."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Jesse jumped up from his seat and dove towards the front door at the sound of a car pulling up to the Beach House, he quickly whipped opened the door with an excited smile on his face, "Did you get it?"

Amanda laughed, "It's in the back."

"Thanks Amanda, you're the best!" He said as he rushed past her.

"Yeah, and don't you forget it." She grinned, following him "Besides it was taking up too much room in the morgue."

Jesse pulled his surf board out of the back of Amanda's car and turned to her sheepishly, "Yeah, sorry about that."

Tony, Ziva and McGee watched them from the doorway.

"Are you sure this is a good idea Tony?" McGee questioned.

"Of course it is, I mean look at the guy, he actually looks happy."

"So this is all for the Doctors benefit?" Ziva challenged, "And it as nothing to do with the three attractive women in bikini's who are sunbathing on the beach?"

"You're very cynical Ziva," Tony replied, "And there's only two now, one of them left about ten minutes ago."

"You know, I don't think Gibbs is gonna be too happy about this."

Tony looked around, making sure Gibbs wasn't there, "Yeah, well we can't turn back now, he's already got his wetsuit on, unless you wanna be the one to tell him we've had a change of heart McGee?"

* * *

><p>Mark and Amanda sat on deck chairs watching Jesse surf, they were both just happy he was having fun, the last couple of days had been hard on the young Doctor. Ziva and McGee stood near them, keeping a close eye on Jesse and looking out for anything suspicious. Although they would never give Tony the satisfaction of admitting it, Ziva and McGee were beginning to think that this was a good idea. Tony had stayed back at the Beach House to get changed, he didn't want to go on the beach wearing his expensive Italian suit, Mark told him he could wear something of Steve's.<p>

"How any man can take so long getting dressed is beyond me." Ziva rolled her eyes, "Surely he can't do anything else with his hair."

"He's probably laying outfits out on the bed, seeing which ones match." McGee replied.

Mark and Amanda couldn't help but grin at their conversation, it did seem to be taking the Special Agent a while.

"What the hell are you wearing?" McGee blurted out as Tony emerged in front of them, wearing a red and blue Hawaiian shirt, blue jeans and a baseball cap.

"Oh come on McGeek, you must recognise it, this is a Jungle bird shirt, just like the one Tom Selleck wore on Magnum P.I."

Mark smiled, "I can't remember the last time I saw Steve wear that, I didn't even know he still had it."

* * *

><p>Gibbs came storming up the beach towards them, he couldn't help but do a double take at Tony when he reached them, "DiNozzo what the hells going on here?"<p>

Tony could have sworn he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, "Oh hey Boss, I thought Travis could do with a little cheering up." He cringed, waiting for the inevitable head-slap to occur, when it didn't he opened his eyes again in surprise.

Jesse walked up to them, carrying his surfboard, "It's my fault, I asked DiNozzo if I could go surfing." He slammed the surfboard into the sand, then sighed as it fell over anyway, he smiled at Amanda as she passed him a towel.

"Yeah, well he should have said 'no'." Gibbs replied, slapping Tony on the back of the head now the younger Agent wasn't expecting it, "Can't I leave the three of you alone for one hour?"

"Boss, we were watching Dr Travis very carefully, nothing suspicious happened."

Gibbs put his face straight up to McGee's, "Is that right McGee?" The Junior Field Agent nodded, "And why you were all out here, what was going on inside the house?"

"Hey, I just came from the Beach House, nothing seemed out of place." Steve answered, he'd joined them on the beach a few minutes before Gibbs had got there.

Mark stood up, "Well I don't know about anyone else but I'm feeling a little hungry."

Jesse grabbed his surfboard, "Yeah, so am I."

They all headed back to the Beach House, Jesse seemed a lot more upbeat now and back to his old self, as far as Mark, Steve and Amanda were concerned they were glad he'd gone surfing.

When they got back to the Beach House Mark put his blue apron on and started to cook some spaghetti bolognese, "Hey Jesse, will you pass me a jar of tomato sauce from the refrigerator?"

"Sure Doc." Jesse opened the refrigerator and grabbed the tomato sauce, he suddenly let go of the jar and everyone turned to him as it smashed on the floor.

"So, whose up for spaghetti carbonara?" Mark asked light-heartedly.

It wasn't unusual for the young Doctor to be clumsy, but the way he just stared down at the shelf without reacting to Marks question was.

"Are you hurt Jess?"

Jesse looked at Steve and shook his head, before pointing into the refrigerator.

Steve looked were he was pointing then turned to the NCIS team, "You're gonna want to see this."

NCIS were stood behind them no sooner than he'd said it, inside the refrigerator was a small glass bottle, with a cork in the top containing some sort of liquid, on the front was a picture of Jesse's head, with a 'X' drawn on each eye, and a label saying, 'Drink me Jesse' wrote on it.

Jesse was about to pick up the bottle until Gibbs quickly grabbed hold of his arm, "Hey!' Gibbs held up some latex gloves and started to put them on, "Rule number two, always wear gloves at a crime scene."

"That's a concept Jesse finds hard to grasp." Steve patted Jesse on his shoulder.

Jesse stood back, "Well I was having a good day."

"McGee bag it and send it over to Abby, I wanna know what this liquid is."

Amanda looked at Gibbs, "You know I am a Pathologist, I can test that liquid for you, and it'll be quicker than sending it all the way back to DC."

Gibbs thought for about it for a moment, then gave McGee the nod to hand it over to her.

* * *

><p>Amanda went straight back to the Beach House once she'd found out what was inside the glass bottle, she knew the others would be just as surprised as she was. Once she got there she took a brown file out of her car and knocked on the door, Mark opened it and let her in. Everyone looked at her expectantly and she wasted no time in letting them know what she'd found out.<p>

She opened up the file and read from it, "I found Sodium Polyacrylate, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Chloride and," She looked up at them with a knowing smile, "Sodium Hypochlorite."

Mark took the file off her and put his glasses on, "Bleach?"

She nodded, "Yeah, Just regular bleach."

"You know, I once poured bleach all over my Dads Armani suit." Tony recalled, cringing slightly, "He kicked me so hard I could hardly walk for a fortnight."

"Was the suit expensive?" McGee Asked.

"Oh yeah, I never did it again that's for sure." Tony replied, "It was just my luck that I did it on a day when my Dad wasn't too drunk to care, or more importantly, catch me."

Steve grabbed a bottle of bleach from under the sink, "So, you mean like this?" Amanda nodded, and Steve looked at the cap, "Dad, have you opened this?"

Mark shook his head and since Steve had only bought it the day before and nobody else had touched the bottle it was seeming very likely that whoever had entered the Beach House most probably used the bleach from that bottle.

Jesse had recognised the photograph that had been used, it was one Shelly had took of him when they were having a walk along the beach about a week after they'd started dating, which was the main reason why he'd been so upset when he saw it. After Amanda had left to test the liquid Jesse took Mark to one side and told him; Mark said that Jesse needed to tell Gibbs about it, which the young Doctor reluctantly did. Gibbs hadn't been too happy that he had withheld information, but he wasn't too hard on him.

"So what now Boss?" Tony asked.

"Now, I want you and Sloan to go to Shelly Samuals house and find out about that photograph," Gibbs stopped Jesse before he even had a chance to protest, "We need to find out if anyone else had access to them."

"On it Boss." Tony nodded, following Steve out.

Mark stopped him as he walked past, "Hey, is that true what you said, about your Father?"

"Nah, it was more like a week and a half." Tony smiled, before walking out of the door.

Mark frowned as he watched them leave.

* * *

><p>"So, what do you think?" Steve asked as he drove to Shelly's house.<p>

"In my experience it's almost always the wife." Tony replied, "You know I'm surprised your Dad's not a Cop, his Detective skills are pretty impressive, he's a lot better than most of the Cops I knew back at Baltimore PD."

"You were a Cop?" Steve asked, Tony nodded in response and Steve smiled, "I come from a long line of Cops, it just so happens that the best Detective of us all ended up being a Doctor."

Tony laughed, then looked out of the window, "Looks like we're here."

Steve pulled up to her house and they both headed to her house. She wasn't too happy to see them both, especially considering what had happened the night before, she told them she just wanted to be left alone. When they asked her about the photographs she took them out of a drawer in the living room and handed them to Tony, who found the one that had been used on the bottle.

"Someone cut his head out?" She gasped, "That was my favourite one too, he was so surprised when I took the photograph, he didn't even know I had a camera." She started to laugh lightly.

"Does anyone else know about these photo's?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, I showed them to everybody, my friends, cousins, brother."

Steve looked at her, "When was the last time you looked at them?"

"A couple of days ago, just after your Father came and told me I was a suspect."

"And has anyone had access to them since?"

"If you're asking if anyone's been to my house Special Agent DiNozzo then yes, I've had friends over, my cousins have dropped by, and my brothers almost always around." She answered, "But I can't believe any of them could be behind this, I'm very close to my family, and I trust my friends."

Tony put the photographs into an evidence bag and the two of them headed back to the Beach House to report back.

* * *

><p>It was late afternoon and nowhere near as fun as earlier, Jesse sat on the couch, watching as McGee typed almost continuously on his Laptop, and Gibbs was around, somewhere. It seemed one minute Gibbs was nowhere to be seen and the next he was right next to them, when Jesse asked McGee how he does it the Junior Field Agent told him he had no idea.<p>

Jesse stood up and started walking out to the deck.

"Hey, where are you going?" McGee asked.

"To get my surfboard, I left it outside remember."

McGee stood up and walked to him, "OK, after you."

Jesse sighed, "Is this really necessary?"

"Of course, if you get to leave the house then so do I." McGee smiled when Jesse grinned in response.

"Hey McGee!" Gibbs shouted.

"Yeah Boss?"

"Something beeped."

"OK." He turned back to Jesse who was half way down the stairs, "Hey, Dr Travis wait for me."

"McGee!"

McGee sighed, "Coming Boss."

He headed back to his Laptop and saw an impatient looking Gibbs who had no idea what the beeping meant, all he knew was that whenever anything usually beeped it meant that they'd discovered something to help them with the case. This time however it was not the case, it turned out that McGee's Laptop just needed charging.

"Hey, where's Travis?"

"He was getting his surfboard, I told him to wait Boss."

The two of them headed out onto the deck and McGee called to him, when he didn't answer the two of them looked at each other then started to run down the stairs, Gibbs in front.

Gibbs looked around until his eyes landed on Jesse's body, sprawled out on the floor looking lifeless, he quickly ran to him and felt for a pulse.

McGee's eye's widened, "Boss I was only gone a second, I..."

"McGee phone 911, and stay with him!" Gibbs shouted as he took off to find the culprit.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Well then why did you run?" Tony hissed impatiently to the unshaven man who was sitting on the opposite side of the interrogation room table. He knew Ziva would be enjoying this spectacle from her spot behind the two-way mirror, away from the smell of stale ale and urine, and that made the whole thing even more irritating. Tony only wished he hadn't agreed to a 'best out of three' coin toss.

"Because that old guy was chasing me." The man, who had told them that his name was Jonathan Irvine, was wearing an unclean yellow plaid shirt, which was opened, with torn denim cut off shorts and green faded low top sneakers with holes in them.

"And what about the bat you were carrying?" Tony asked. Gibbs had spotted Irvine fleeing the scene with a baseball bat in his hand, it didn't take long for the 'old guy' to capture the suspect and 'cuff him. Unsurprisingly Irvines attempt to dispose of the bat by dropping it on the sand in plain sight had failed.

He sat back in his chair, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tony opened up the file that he had and pushed a photograph of the bat towards Irvine, telling him that it had his fingerprints all over it. The man suddenly looked very agitated, shuffling forward on his chair and clasping his hands together on the table. According to Irvine he had never even seen Jesse and knew nothing of his attack, he told Tony that the only reason he was running with the bat was because 'some guy' gave it to him, along with fifty bucks and told him to run across the beach with it. Tony then asked Irvine what the man he was referring to looked like, when Irvine told the Special Agent that he was taking more notice of the money than the actual man Tony told him to try and remember, although he quickly regretted not taking the suspects first answer.

"OK, well he was about your height, but smaller, not too small though, and he was wearing black pants, or were they green?"

Tony rested his head on his hand and sighed as he listened to the man ramble on unhelpfully, after a while he just stood up and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Irvine asked.

"To find a shower," He answered, looking Irvine up and down, "I have a sudden urge to wash."

* * *

><p>Gibbs closed his cell phone, Tony had just called to tell him what had happened in the interrogation room; he was waiting in Community General Hospital along with McGee and Steve for any news on Jesse.<p>

McGee couldn't help but feel guilty, and the fact that Gibbs had hardly spoken to him since it happened made him feel even worse, he looked over at Gibbs, "Boss, this is all my fault."

"It's not just your fault McGee." Gibbs replied.

McGee was a little surprised that Gibbs' wanted to share the blame, "Boss no, you can't blame yourself, how you was supposed known what that beeping noise meant?"

Gibbs turned to McGee, his face void of all emotion, "I was talking about Dr Travis." He lied, turning away from McGee before the inevitable grin made it's way to his face as he listened to his Junior Field Agent trying to dig himself out of a hole.

"How is he?" Steve asked when he saw Mark.

"Jesse has a concussion, he's feeling a little confused but he should be fine."

"Is he up to answering some questions Doc?"

Mark smiled at Gibbs, "I don't see why not, although I'm not sure how helpful he'll be right now, he's already told me three times that he likes my tie."

McGee gave Mark a confused look as the Doctor lead them into Jesse's room, "But you're not wearing a tie."

It was obvious from Gibbs' first question that Mark was right, Jesse had no memory of the attack, all he could remember was that he was heading out of the Beach House to get his surfboard. In fact he became more concerned about his surfboard than anything else.

* * *

><p>Tony cringed in sympathy when he saw Jesse's face, "That's quite a bruise you've got there."<p>

Jesse looked over at Mark, "I thought you said it didn't look that bad."

"It didn't, when I said it." Mark passed him an ice pack, "I told you to keep this on it."

"But it's cold." Jesse frowned as he placed the ice pack over his left temple.

Ziva and McGee stood guard on each side of the door, their boss not wanting to take anymore chances. Gibbs and Steve walked past them both and back into Jesse's room, the NCIS Special Agent had been filling the Lieutenant in on what Tony and Ziva had found out back at the Police Station. Irvine had no connection whatsoever to Samuals or the young Doctor, and Ziva believed he was telling the truth, which meant whoever attacked Jesse was still out there. Before Tony and Ziva had arrived at the Hospital Gibbs had took Mark outside to discuss what would be best for Jesse's safety.

Gibbs sat at the edge of Jesse's bed, "We don't think it's safe for you here, not right now." He told the young Doctor softly.

"Where else can I go?"

"Well, I do have one place in mind," Gibbs looked over at Mark who seemed quite reluctant, "But it's dangerous for you also."

"I don't understand," Jesse replied uneasily, "Where are you taking me?"

"To NCIS," Gibbs answered, "I talked it over with Dr Sloan and we weighed up the threat to you here with the danger of you getting on a plane with a concussion, the plane seemed like the safer option, but it's your decision, we'll do whatever you want."

"I'll go to NCIS." There was the slightest hint of excitement in Jesse's voice.

Gibbs smiled, but told him to think it over some more, although he knew there was little chance of Jesse changing his mind. Gibbs and Tony left the room to let the young Doctor rest.

"So I guess you're heading back to NCIS Boss?" Tony asked.

"No."

Tony looked at Gibbs, "McGee?"

"Nope."

"Ziva?" Tony frowned when Gibbs shook his head, "But Boss, I should stay here and help out with the investigation."

"It's an important task, and you are the Senior Field Agent, DiNozzo." Gibbs kept a straight face, "You know, like you keep telling everybody."

"But Boss I," He looked at Ziva and McGee who were obviously trying not to laugh, then turned back to Gibbs, "I think travelling by plane is a bad idea, we should keep him here."

"Well we can't turn back now, he's already excited, unless you wanna be the one to tell him we've had a change of heart Tony?" McGee grinned.

* * *

><p>Jesse couldn't help feeling ashamed the next morning, he'd been horrible to Amanda through the night. All she was doing was her job and he'd snapped at her more than once. She needed to check up on him every two hours to ask him a simple question, like 'what's your name' or 'what's today's date' and that was making Jesse feel very irritated, especially since it seemed that every time he started to drift off she'd disturb him again.<p>

Amanda had been amused by the whole thing, it was like Jesse was competing with Mark for the worst patient award, and turning out to be a pretty good contender too. One thing Amanda wasn't happy about however was the flight Jesse would be taking with Tony to Washington DC later on in the day. She thought it was a bad decision, but like Mark said it was the lesser of two evils, and also Jesse's decision and they both knew how much the young Doctor wanted to see the NCIS building.

It was early afternoon now and Jesse was staring, unimpressed, at a tray of food that a nurse had just given him. Steve, who was now the only other person in the room since the nurse had left, watched with a frown as the young Doctor uncharacteristically made no attempts to eat the food, "Aren't you hungry Jess?"

"Of course I am." He peeked under one of the food covers, a look of distaste on his face, "I just don't like hospital food"

Steve looked suitably shocked, "How can you not like this stuff." He grabbed a fork, "It's great."

Jesse scrunched up his nose in disgust as he watched the Lieutenant dig in to the so-called food that was on the plate, "OK, now I'm not hungry."

They suddenly heard a commotion outside and Steve got up to see what was happening, as he opened the door he saw his Father rushing down the corridor, "What's going on?"

Mark turned to Steve, "Bus crash, patients should be arriving in about ten minutes."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Jesse stood in front of Mark and Gibbs near the Nurses Station, pleading with them to let him help out, "The Ambulances will be arriving any minute now, who knows how many victims there might be, an extra pair of hands would help."

"I've already told you, you're putting yourself in too much danger," Gibbs replied, knowing that if Jesse, along with all the other Doctors and Nurses were rushing around from patient to patient it would make it a lot harder for them to watch him, and easier for the killer to get to him.

Jesse turned to Mark instead when it was obvious there was no compromising with Gibbs, "Doc, you could use my help, right?"

Mark sighed, "Jesse, you have a concussion, you need to rest, I haven't even discharged you yet."

"But you was going to and I can rest on the plane," He looked at them both, then frowned, "I just wanna do something to help out, please."

Mark and Gibbs looked at each other.

"It's your choice Doc."

Mark thought about it for a moment, then dragged his hand down his face, "OK, but..."

"Thank you Doc, you're the best!" Jesse started to rush off.

"Hey, I haven't finished yet," Mark called to him, Jesse stopped and looked at Mark, "You can help, but under one condition, you stay with me, and if your headache gets worse, you start feeling dizzy, or if I see you so much as yawn you have to stop, understand?"

They could here the sound of sirens approaching, Jesse nodded, "You won't regret this."

* * *

><p>The Hospital, as predicted, was pretty chaotic; whilst Mark, Jesse and Amanda dealt with all the patients, Gibbs, Ziva and McGee were spread out around the Hospital, looking out for anything suspicious and Steve and Tony kept their eyes on Jesse.<p>

Tony's offer to help out with the patients had been shunned by one of the Nurses, much the Steve's amusement, who gave the Special Agent a little advise, 'I found out a long time ago that the best way to help is to stay out of their way.'

Tony couldn't help but notice how different Jesse looked when he worked, he was so much more self-assured, like he was were he belonged. He couldn't understand all the medical jargon, but from all the praise Mark was giving to the young Doctor he was certainly doing something right. Tony was impressed. He'd also noticed that they kept putting different coloured tags on the patients, from what he could decipher it seemed that the green tags seemed to be for minor injuries, the yellow tags looked serious but not too urgent, red seemed to be for critical injuries, and the black tags were obviously for the deceased. So far there had only been two black tags, both DOA's.

Mark, and Amanda were both keeping their eyes on Jesse too, a lot of patients had come through the Hospital doors and there was still more on their way, some of the patients needing to be cut from the bus. They were both beginning to feel worn out so they could only imagine how Jesse would be feeling. Mark was pleased to note however that the young Doctors concussion hadn't hindered his ability as a Doctor.

Although he wouldn't admit it, Jesse was beginning to feel pretty exhausted, his head pain had increased and he was finding it difficult to concentrate. He knew it wouldn't be long before Mark noticed, and that would mean he'd no longer be able to assist with the remaining patients.

Gibbs, McGee and Ziva hadn't seen anything suspicious at all, just a lot of patients being rolled in on gurneys, and Medical staff rushing to their aid.

The Bus Driver had swerved to avoid a car, hit another bus, which had crashed sideways into a wall and the car had crashed into the bus anyway. One of the DOA's was the fist Bus Driver, and the second was a man in the passenger seat of the car, he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

* * *

><p>There was a great sigh of relief throughout the Hospital when the last victim, a green tag, was wheeled away by an Orderly. It had certainly been an eventful afternoon for everybody involved, and no one could blame them for being thankful that all the chaos was over.<p>

Mark, Jesse and Amanda leant against the Nurses Station, looking weary but content, NCIS and Steve walked over to them. Gibbs let them know that they hadn't seen anything suspicious whilst Mark gave Jesse a quick check over.

"You know, I've been thinking," Mark turned to Gibbs, "What if we've been looking at this whole case in the wrong way?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow, "I'm listening."

"Well, we've all been assuming that the murderer killed Samuals to frame Jesse, because it was so soon after he was confronted by Samuals, giving him a motive, and his fingerprints were all over the murder weapon," Mark began, "But other than Shelly, who else knew Jesse had handled the gun?"

"I can't imagine it would have come up in many of her conversations." Amanda answered.

Jesse pouted, "Great, something else pointing the murder at Shelly."

"My point exactly," Mark put his hand on the young Doctors shoulder, who was staring at him in confusion, "I think Shelly is the person who the murderer was trying to frame, like you said, everything that's happened since you were arrested as pointed to Shelly, the wardrobe, the bleach, your concussion, it all just seems a little too..."

"Coincidental?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah," Mark nodded, "I think Samuals was murdered out of jealousy, in fact I think Jesse was the intended target too, but something went wrong."

Gibbs considered what Mark had said, his theory did seem plausible. If the killer did indeed love Shelly Samuals but the feeling wasn't mutual then knowing that he couldn't have her and she was married to another man would be bad enough, but seeing her having an affair with Jesse would be torture. The natural jealousy he would have been feeling increased considerably until he couldn't stand it anymore, so he decided to kill Jesse and Samuals and frame Shelly. If he couldn't have her, then nobody could.

There was one thing that was now unclear, "If the murderer wasn't trying to frame Jesse then why did he receive a phone call that would place him close to the crime scene?"

Steve had a point, So Gibbs told McGee to pull up Veronica Martins phone records. McGee rushed out to the car, where his laptop was and quickly got to work, once he found what he wanted he hurried back to the others. It turned out Veronica Martins had lied, the call Jesse received did come from her house phone.

"Maybe the killer knew Martins, told her to phone Travis so he wouldn't have to go as far to kill both of them," Tony surmised, "But she had a change of heart, let Jesse go and then made up some sort of excuse so the killer wouldn't hurt her too?"

"OK, Ziva, McGee bring Veronica Martins in for questioning," Gibbs turned to Tony and Jesse, "Don't you two have a plane to catch?"


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

With a 'ding' the elevator doors opened, a haggard looking Tony and Jesse stepped out, by the looks on their faces it was obvious that their journey to the Navy Yard had not been a pleasant one.

"How was I supposed to get any rest when you kept tapping me every time I closed my eyes?" Jesse continued the heated discussion the two of them had been having in the elevator.

"Hey, I was just making sure you was still alive." Tony raised his voice defensively as they headed to Autopsy.

"Wasn't my breathing good enough?"

The doors to Autopsy opened and Dr Donald 'Ducky' Mallard, who was wearing black pants, a blue shirt and red bow tie under a white lab coat turned his attention to the two younger men, "Ah Anthony, and you must be Jesse, it's good to finally put a face to the name."

The two of them shook hands, "It's nice to meet you Dr Mallard."

"Please, call me Ducky," He smiled, "I must say, I was beginning to feel worried, what took you both so long to get here?"

"DiNozzo dragged me all the way to the Hospital because I tripped." Jesse rolled his eyes.

"OK, you didn't trip, you wobbled," Tony turned to Ducky, "He wobbled."

The flight to Washington DC hadn't done Jesse's headache any favours, in fact it was hurting considerably more by the time they got to their destination. When they got off the plane Jesse had felt dizzy, and lost his balance, giving Tony a cause for concern, so despite the young Doctor saying, 'I'm fine really, I just tripped', the Special Agent took Jesse to the Hospital anyway and ignored his protests.

When they got to the Hospital Jesse was given an MRI and CT scan to check for swelling, luckily there was none, but they kept him in for a few hours for observation. To Tony's displeasure, since he drove him to the Hospital Jesse had done nothing but complain.

After they told Ducky what had happened the two of them started to argue again, so Ducky stepped in and changed the subject, "How are you feeling now?"

"I feel a little better." Jesse gave a sheepish smile.

"The Doc said we need to keep an eye on him, and if he starts to feel any worse we should take him back to the Hospital." Tony told Ducky.

"Oh great, I'm never gonna get any rest."

"Au contraire, resting is precisely what you will be doing," Ducky smiled, "Tony you should take our guest up to Abigail Lab, he'll be more comfortable there."

"That's just where I was heading," Tony replied, putting his hand on Jesse's back and leading him towards the door, "Thanks Ducky."

* * *

><p>Forensic Scientist, Abby Scuito was pacing her Lab, her worry for Tony building; he was supposed to have arrived back from LA hours ago and even though her gut wasn't as reliable as Gibbs, she couldn't shake the feeling that something 'hinky' had happened. The white Lab coat she was wearing over a black skull T-shirt and Tripp black chain pants was flowing behind her as she walked, her black pigtails bobbing up and down with every step; a pair of Demonia boots, a spiked choker and matching spiked wristbands topped off her gothic style.<p>

When Tony and Jesse finally entered her Lab she literally dove on the Special Agent and hugged him tightly, forcing him to take a step backwards to keep his balance and almost knocking the Caf-Pow out of his hand, "I missed you too Abs." He choked, trying to untangle himself from her grip. Abby left go and looked towards the drink, "This is from Gibbs," Tony smiled, passing her the Caf-Pow, he kissed her cheek, "And that was from McGee."

She smiled, then looked at the Caf-Pow, "Gibbs owes me two of these."

"I know, he says he wants to give you the other one in person," Tony put his hand on Jesse's shoulder, "Hey, Ducky says Dr Travis can crash here."

"You went to see Ducky first?" Abby looked offended, then turned to Jesse as though she had only just noticed he was there, "Oh, hey, I'm Abby," She greeted, sounding a little unsure of him, Jesse just about managed a small weary smile in return, "Sure you can crash here, there's a Futon just through there." She pointed towards the glass doors and Jesse trudged through them, mumbling 'thanks' as he walked past her.

Tony and Abby walked to the other side of the Lab so as not to disturb Jesse, "Hey, did Gibbs give you the low-down on Veronica Martins?"

Abby took a slurp of Caf-Pow and nodded, "I'm not surprised she lied about calling the Hospital," She grinned, "I guess her flatulence diagnosed the trapped wind for her, do you believe her?"

"Yeah," Tony tried to hold back a laugh, "Whose gonna lie about something like that?"

* * *

><p>Jesse opened his eyes and looked around at the room, feeling a little disorientated by the unfamiliar surroundings. He stood up from the Futon and started to walk around the empty Lab, "Hello?" He called out, looking at the strange artwork on the wall. The young Doctor had been so exhausted when he'd first entered Abby's Lab that he hadn't even took notice of his surroundings, but now his usual curiosity was back and he couldn't help but touch anything that looked even remotely interesting.<p>

When Abby got back to her Lab she saw him hovering over the Mass Spectrometer, "Hey, don't touch that!"

Jesse almost jumped out of his skin, "I wasn't, I was just looking."

She narrowed her eyes, "I'm a Forensic Scientist, I can prove if you're lying you know."

"OK, I'm sorry." He sighed, giving into her gaze, afraid it might burn a hole right through him. The truth was he hadn't actually touched her precious machine, she'd walked in just before he'd had a chance to see what the buttons did, "Do you need any help with anything?"

"No, anyway, aren't you supposed to be resting?" She looked at the bruise on his temple, "How's your head?"

Jesse gave a sheepish smile, "No worse than before."

"Oh, you're up," Tony said as he entered the Lab, taking a sip of his coffee.

Jesse suddenly felt guilty when he saw the Special Agent approach them, "Yeah, about before, I'm really sorry, I..."

Tony put his hand out, "Hey, you've done nothing to apologise for."

"So, have you heard anything from Gibbs, or McGee or Ziva even?" Abby asked in a rush before Jesse had the chance to say anything further.

"Actually that's what I came down to tell you," Tony smiled, "McGee just called, it seems Dr Sloan's theory was partly right, one of Shelly Samuals' friends, a guy called Mickey Myers is in love with Shelly Samuals, has been since High School, so according to Myers when he found out about the two of you he was so infuriated that she would have an affair with anyone but him that he had to do something about it, so he told Victor Samuals about the affair."

"And then Myers killed him, and tried to kill me too," Jesse suddenly looked very relieved, "So that's it, the murders solved?"

"OK, I think you're getting a little carried away there," Tony stopped him, "So far all we know for certain is that he told Samuals about the two of you, we've got no evidence to prove that he's the murderer, in fact, according to Shelly Samuals, and everyone else Ziva and McGee talked to, no one saw Myers go anywhere near the house on the day of the murder."

"So if Myers didn't go into her house then there's no way he could have planted the gun...unless, he was working with somebody else, but who?" Abby tapped her chin thoughtfully.

Jesse sighed, "And if Myers isn't involved?"

"Then we're back to where we started." Tony answered, "Hey, do you wanna go on that tour now?"

"OK," Jesse grinned, "Hey, do I get a badge?"

* * *

><p>The doors to Autopsy opened, "And last but not least we have Autopsy, but you've already been in here, hey Ducky." Tony greeted as the M.E approached.<p>

"Ah, I see you're giving Jesse here the tour," Ducky smiled, "So what do you make of our abode?"

"This place is huge, so much bigger than the Los Angeles Police Department," Jesse replied enthusiastically, "It's got so many machines and gadgets."

"Yes, indeed it has," Ducky laughed, "I received a phone call from Dr Sloan earlier, he wanted to know how you were doing, he's a charming man, he speaks very highly of you, you know."

Jesse gave an embarrassed smile, "Dr Sloan's great."

"Any news on the investigation?"

"No, nothing yet Anthony."

"You know, I think we need to go through this whole case again." Tony said before he started to head towards the door, "Ducky, will you meet us upstairs when you're done here?" He signalled for Jesse to follow him.

"You want my help too?" Jesse looked hopeful.

"Sure," Tony looked back, then took out his cellphone, "I'll phone Abby, we need to look at this case in a new perspective."

Ducky watched as the two of them left, and the Autopsy doors closed behind them, he couldn't help but hope that whatever the 'new perspective' turned out to be, it would finally be the right one.

* * *

><p>Tony, Jesse, Ducky and Abby, or 'Team DiNozzo' as Tony had dubbed them were standing in front of the plasma, on the screen were the photographs of the six possible suspects, Dylan Sanders, Carl Sanders and Julie Sanders were in a line on the top, whilst Jerry Sanders, Emily Sanders and Mickey Myers were in a line on the bottom. Dylan and Emily were both the spitting image of their Father Jerry, only Dylan had their Mothers, Julie Sanders, fair hair.<p>

"OK people," Tony pointed the remote at the screen, clicking on the first photograph and enlarging the image, "Dylan Sanders, what do we know?"

"Well we know he's got a temper, he proved that by the way he spoke to Amanda," Jesse spoke up, "And he was late to work on the day of the murder, but that's not unusual, Shelly used to talk about how she was surprised that his boss 'Hank' was so patient with him, apparently he was fired from the two previous jobs he'd had for constantly oversleeping."

"OK, we'll put him on the 'maybe' pile," Tony moved away the photograph of Dylan, leaving them with the five remaining suspects, he pointed the remote towards Carl Sanders, "Next, we have..."

Abby grabbed the remote, leaving Tony to stare at his now empty hand, "We can eliminate these two," She took away the photographs of Shelly's Aunt and Uncle, "Their alibi checks out, I pulled up CCTV pictures from the Bank they said they we're in at the time of the murder, it looked like they were arguing with the Bank clerk." She then clicked on the photograph of Emily Sanders, "And her alibi checked out too, she was at work at the time of the murder."

"Great," He tried to take the remote back off Abby but she clicked on the photograph for him, the Special Agent frowned and mumbled a 'thanks' before continuing, "So now we have Carl Sanders."

"Carl and Shelly are very close, in fact he even stayed in LA when their parents moved to New Jersey about five years ago, just so he could stay and look out for his older sister," Jesse told them, then added somewhat solemnly, "I guess with Victor Samuals being away so much he felt it was still his responsibility to look out for her."

Ducky gave him a sympathetic look, "Carl Sanders was apparently home alone at the time of the murder, although as far as I'm aware there is no one who can verify that."

"OK, so that's another one for the 'maybe' pile." Abby took away Carl's photograph, leaving Mickey Myers on the screen.

"Myers has gotta be a 'maybe', right?" Jesse asked, everybody agreed so he was placed on the 'maybe' pile.

"Abs?" Abby placed the remote into Tony's opened hand, he pulled up the three remaining suspects, "So that cuts the suspects down to half."

"Now we need to determine which of our remaining suspects had a motive to murder the Petty Officer, attempt to murder Jesse, and frame Mrs Samuals." Ducky looked intently at the screen.

"Myers, it's gotta be," Jesse pointed to Mickey Myers' photograph, the man had short dark hair and a chinstrap beard, although it was so thin it looked more like stubble, "He hates me and Victor Samuals for being involved with the woman he loves, and he wants to get Shelly back for the rejection."

"A very good theory my dear boy, but there is still the matter of the murder weapon."

"Ducky's right, if Myers is the murderer then he must have been working with somebody else, which leads us all the way back to square one again," Abby sighed, "Anyone of them could have planted the murder weapon, well, maybe not her Aunt and Uncle, because they say they didn't even know about Jesse, but even if that's true it still leaves us with three people who could have been working with Myers." She scrunched up her face in deep thought, "That's if Myers is even the killer, we still don't know if they've found any evidence to suggest he was even involved, so no evidence means no case."

Tony added Emily Sanders photograph back into the mix, "OK, so I guess we've gotta determine which of these four had a motive."

* * *

><p>The four of them spent a good hour on the Mickey Myers theory, trying to decide which of the three remaining suspects had the biggest motive to help Myers with the murder. The fact that the three of them didn't seem to have anything against Shelly, Jesse or Victor Samuals made it all the more difficult. The phone call they received from Gibbs however, informing them that Mickey Myers had a foolproof alibi put a stop to the theory that Myers was the murderer, which allowed Emily Sanders to be removed from the list of suspects once again, leaving them with two seemingly unlikely suspects, Dylan Sanders and Carl Sanders.<p>

Tony, Jesse and Abby were now huddled around a monitor in her Lab, watching Movies Tony had brought from home, the only light in the room was coming from the glare of the monitor.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Only having two suspects should have made solving the case easier, but coming up with reasons why either of them would want to kill Victor Samuals and Jesse, and frame Shelly was proving difficult. The fact that both men seemingly cared so much for Shelly Samuals was the main reason they were having trouble, it was becoming clear that one of them obviously didn't care for Shelly as much as they were making out.

That was assuming that Shelly was in fact being framed, the possibility that Shelly was somehow involved in the murder was still in the back of some of their minds.

McGee was sat between Mark and Steve, setting up his Laptop on Marks coffee table, so they could discuss the investigation with the rest of the team via webcam. They found that when it came to discussing a case doing if face to face, whether it was in the same room, or on a screen, was always much better.

Gibbs stood behind them, his shoulders hunched and his hands gripping the back of the couch, watching as McGee got everything ready, "How long's this gonna take McGee?"

"Nearly done Boss," McGee answered, although he'd practically only just started, he wasn't at all surpised by his Boss' impatience, Gibbs had a tendency to expect everything to be done instantly, "I just gotta adjust this so they can see us all," He started to mess with the webcam, then turned to Gibbs with a satisfied smile on his face, "And, it's done."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Gibbs pointed at the screen, "Get them on."

* * *

><p>Abby was leaning over the computer in her Lab, alongside Tony and Jesse, McGee had phoned about twenty minutes earlier, telling her that he was setting up a video call. The Forensic Scientist tapped her fingers slowly at either side of her keyboard, eagerly awaiting that video call, she hadn't seen Gibbs and Ziva for over a week, McGee on the other hand had contacted her via webcam several times throughout their stay in LA, although their conversation scarcely lasted more than a half hour.<p>

Abby was less than impressed when she received a phone call from Ducky, asking her to collect some samples from Autopsy, the British Doctor was a hard man to turn down, "Do not let them call before I come back," She warned the computer, before quickly heading to the door, "Oh!"

No sooner had she left than a close up of McGee's face appeared on the screen, Tony quickly put his hand up at the screen dramatically, "For crying out loud McGee, what are you trying to do to me?"

"Funny." McGee replied, moving back, revealing the five other people in the room, "Where's Abby?"

Jesse moved in front of the camera, "Hey, Tony gave me the tour of NCIS, it's..."

Steve raised an eyebrow, "'Tony'?"

"First name basis huh?" A grin appeared on McGee's face, "You got yourself a little 'Bromance' there Tony?"

"Jealous McGee?"

"Not at all, I was just..."

"Hey, the investigation!" Gibbs cut McGee off, then rolled his eyes, "I swear the older I get, the younger they act."

Mark couldn't help the amused smile from appearing on his face at that last comment.

The discussion that concurred consisted of talks about the investigation, and Jesse's somewhat exaggerated description of NCIS. As far as the case was concerned, no other findings had been uncovered since the last time they had contacted each other, so really it was just a matter of having more brainpower to consider the motives of both of the suspects.

* * *

><p>"So in other words we've got nothing." Gibbs pushed away from the couch in frustration.<p>

It seemed every turn they took lead them to a dead end, Jesse was clearly innocent, Shelly Samuals was most likely being framed, and Mickey Myers, the only person they knew who had a motive to kill, or at least attempt to kill both men and frame Shelly had a foolproof alibi, he was giving a lecture in front of a group of College Students.

"I wouldn't call narrowing down the suspects to two nothing," Mark looked back at Gibbs, "We just need to look at it in a new light."

"I believe we are running out of directions to look in, Dr Sloan." Ziva was sat beside Steve on the arm of the couch.

"Oh, and you should see the gadgets Steve," Jesse unwittingly changed the subject in his enthusiasm, "There's nothing at all like them in the Police Station."

"Are you thinking of buying some of those gadgets for your apartment Jess?" Steve grinned.

"You're joking right?" Jesse snorted, "It'd probably cost an whole inheritance to pay for any of this stuff."

"That's it!" Mark started to get up, "Jesse you're a genius."

The young Doctor looked mildly indignant, "Are you mocking me?"

Mark shook his head, "No, I think you may have just solved the case."

He stood up and walked passed Amanda who was sitting on the other arm of the couch, "How Mark?" She asked.

"I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner." He walked towards the deck.

Gibbs walked besides him, "Me neither Doc."

The two of them ignored the questions from everyone in the room and on the screen, comments like, 'He always does this." and "Who's the killer?" flew around the room, but it was obvious that neither man was willing to offer an answer, partly for their own enjoyment, and partly because they still needed to do a little digging.

"Hey McGee," Gibbs stopped and turned to the group, "Bring the computer."

* * *

><p>It wasn't long before everyone else had worked out what Mark and Gibbs were on to and Gibbs had everybody, including the rest of his team back at NCIS joining in with possibly the best lead they had discovered yet.<p>

Abby wasn't happy to find out that they'd had the video call without her, putting the blame on Tony for not keeping them longer, her annoyance quickly subsiding however when the Special Agent insisted that he'd warned McGee not to cut them off. Her main focus then was thinking of ways to make McGee pay, although that was cut short too when she received the phone call from Gibbs, giving them an update on the case, and telling them what he wanted them to find out.

Everybody worked hard to find what would hopefully be the last peice of the puzzle, no one was willing to stop until they had found everything they were looking for, and the more they searched the more this new direction proved promising.

After an hour or so of digging and a few phone calls later they now had only one suspect in mind, and they were more than confident now that they had the right killer.

Gibbs was ready to go in and make the arrested, but Mark had another idea, one that would get them their killer, but also had the possibility of providing them with a confession as well. The opportunity was just too good for Gibbs to pass up.

* * *

><p>"What?" Came the irritated voice from inside the house, the door opened and Carl Sanders looked at the man who had disturbed him, the scowl on his face growing larger, "Oh, it's you, what do you want?"<p>

Mark Sloan gave him a warm smile, "Do you mind if I come in?" He asked politely, noticing Carl's hostile body language Mark added, "I won't take much of your time, in fact, I've come to apologise."

Carl eyed him suspiciously but moved aside regardless, "OK, I'll listen."

Mark stepped inside the house, it actually looked bigger than it had seemed on the outside. It wasn't your regular 'Bachelor pad', in fact the décor was a lot more feminine and there was a definitive 'family' vibe coming off the place, but that was probably because the house was Shelly's and Carl's childhood home and had previously belonged to their parents.

Their parents had given the house to Shelly when they moved out to New Jersey, which is where she stayed with her brother until she met Victor, and moved in with him. Ever since then the house had belonged to Carl, it was clear that neither of them had bothered to redecorate, perhaps because of the childhood memories it holds, or maybe they just hadn't found the time.

Mark followed him towards the Kitchen and stood in the doorway, "I wanted to apologise for accusing your sister of murder, I had no real evidence to back up the accusation, and it's clear now that I was wrong."

Carl stood behind the counter in his kitchen, studying the man, the Doctors apology did seem genuine, "Yeah, well I did tell you that Shelly was innocent."

"You're right, and I should have listened," Mark gave him a friendly smile, "After all you would know, because you killed Victor Samuals."

That noticeably caught Carl Sanders off guard, "So you're just gonna accuse my family one by one?" He demanded furiously, "Why the hell would I want to kill Vic?"

"So you could frame your sister for murder." Mark stated matter-of-factly, his friendly demeanour never faltering.

"You're way out of line Doc," Carl seethed, "I love my sister."

"I don't doubt that, but it seems you love money even more," Mark replied, stepping further into the Kitchen, "Throughout the investigation we've been looking in the wrong direction, and because we've been wrongly assuming that Shelly's affair with Jesse was some how connected we almost missed the real reason for Victor Samuals murder, money," He paused for effect, "We did a little digging and discovered that your parents had recently changed their Will, leaving a larger amount of money to Shelly because your sister is married and was thinking of starting a family," Mark's tone was confident, "You tried to get your parents to change the Will back, but they refused and that filled you with jealousy, so you killed your brother-in-law and framed your sister to stop her from inheriting any of their money, your idea was running smoothly until it was discovered that Jesse had also touched the murder weapon and all the attention was directed at him instead."

"You know, I really like Travis," Carl seemed distant, "It's a shame he'd touched the gun, I didn't want to hurt the guy, but he really did leave me no choice," he stepped back, "I still needed to frame Shelly for Vics murder, so I had to make it look as though Travis was her next target, I never wanted to kill the Doctor, just scare him, make it obvious that someone was out to get him" Carl sounded irritated, "But every time I thought my sister would be close to getting found guilty, no arrest was made so I was forced to actually try and kill him," he moved closer to the knife block on the counter, "It wasn't fair, I always looked out for Shelly, I always tried to be a good brother and son, but no matter how hard I tried, they always liked her better, changing the Will was just the last straw, there she was, having an affair and what happens?" He put his hand on the Chefs knife, "She gets rewarded by getting a bigger share of the inheritance," He pulled out the knife and slid his index finger down the blade, making his way around the counter, "Shelly wouldn't tell our parents to change the Will back, even after everything I'd ever done for her, do you think that's fair Doc?" He started to wave the knife at Mark.

"Carl, I think you need to put the knife back." Mark looked a little nervous.

"Shelly was right, you are good Doc," He gripped the knife tightly and pulled Mark towards himself, "And that's just too bad for you."

"Killing me won't make a difference," Mark choked from the grip Carl had him in, his eye's looking down at the knife which was dangerously close to his jugular, "There's evidence that proves you had a motive, the NCIS Agents, and the Police know you did it."

"Yeah?" Carl held Mark tighter, "Well that's a chance I'm willing to..."

"Put down your weapon!" Gibbs ordered menacingly, the front door lay on the floor in front of him, Steve and McGee were stood on each side of Gibbs, the three of them pointing their guns towards Carl."

Carl looked towards the three guns and laughed dryly, "You won't risk killing him, and none of you have a good enough shot on me." his laughter suddenly stopped and his eye's widened when he heard the click of a gun behind him.

"They don't, but I do," Ziva placed the barrel of her gun on the back of Carl's head, the back door wide open behind her, "Release the Doctor or I will shoot." Carl reluctantly let go of him.

"'Cuff him McGee." Gibbs threw him some handcuffs

"One second," Steve interrupted, walking up to Carl and grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt, he pulled back a fist and punched the murderer square in the Jaw, "That was for trying to kill Jesse...and this," He punched him again, "Is for threatening my Father." Steve let go and watched as Carl fell to the ground, the Lieutenant turned to McGee, "OK, he's all yours."

Gibbs and Mark shared an amused smile and the Special Agent told McGee to take Sanders away. Gibbs looked over at Mark who was opening his shirt, revealing a wire, "Good work Doc, we've got the whole thing."

**The End.**

* * *

><p>AN Thank you for reading, and for the reviews.


End file.
